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THE CHOLERA, 



ITS 



CAUSES, PREVENTION, AND CURE 



SHOWING THE 



INEFFICACY OF DRUG-TREATMENT, 



AND THE SUPERIORITY OF 



THE WATER-CURE, 



IN THiS DiSLaz£ 



BY JOEL SHEW, M. D. 

PRACTITIONER OF THE WATER-CURE, AUTHOR OP WATER-CURE MANUAL, 
EDITOR OF THE WATER-CURE JOURNAL. 



"AN 


OUNCE 


OF 


PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN 


A 


POUND 


OF CURE. 


» 








STEREOTYPED. 






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/ NEW YORK: 

FOWLERS & WELLS, PUBLISHERS, 

NO. o C 8 BROADWAY. 
In Bobton : Philadelphia : 

142 Waeoingtou Street, ■'*<>. 231 Arcb Street. 



c, 






4 
r 



C 5 



Entered, according to act of Cong„ .as, in the year 1843, by 

FOWLERS & WELLS, 

lft ine Clerk's Office of the Diatrv't Court for the Southern District of New York. 



1> 



\* 



^ 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

Definition of the term M Cholera." — Meaning of " Contagion and Infection." —Is the 
Cholera a Contagious Disease? — Causes of Cholera. — Fear a Cause of Epidemics. 
—Anger.— Excessive Grief.— Mental Distress from Want. — Sympathy a Cause of 
Disease. — Drunkenness and Intemperance. — Prostitution.— Filthiness and Degrada- 
tion. — Atmosphere and Electricity. — Animal and Vegetable Diet. — Howard, the 
Philanthropist.— Bible Christians in Philadelphia. — Conclusion Page 9 

LECTURE II. 

Recapitulation. — Manner of an attack of Cholera. — Symptoms of Cholera. — First 
stage. — Second stage. — Stage of Collapse. — Length of time Cholera patients live. — 
Nature of Cholera — Medical Authority on the Treatment of Cholera.— Dr. Elliotson.- 
Dr. Watson.— Dr. Marshall Hall.— Dr. Billing.— Dr. Scouttetten.— Dr. J. V. C 
Smith. — Dr. Wood. — Dr. Dunglinson. — Dr. Mackintosh. — Dr. Condie.— Dr. P. C 
Tappen. — Philadelphia Board of Health. — Dr. Parkes. — Dr. Broussais. — London 
Morning Chronicle. — Drs. Bell and Condie on Saline Injection into the Veins and 
Arteriotomy. — Blood-letting. — Di. Tappen's Remarks thereon. — Homeopathic 
Treatment — Closing Remarks .... 42 



LECTURE III. 

The System of Water-cure ; a Pictura showing what it is. — Water one of the Leading 
Constituents of all Living Bodies. — The Human Body composed mostly of Water. 
— Life may be Sustained for weeks by Water alone. — Facts in proof thereof — Wa- 
ter assuages Hunger. — Remedial uses of Water. — Animals take to Water when 
poisoned. — Boerhaave's theory of Fever. — Stimulating practice in Fevers and Inflam- 
matory Diseases wrong. — The cooling Regimen the mo6t natural and the best. — Wa- 
ter the greatest of ail Tonics. — Facts from Howard. — Dr. Baynard. — Dr. Hancock.— 
Dr. Adam Clarke. — Sir John Floyer and Dr. Baynard. — A Fever case. — Cold Wa- 
ter in Scalds and Burns. — Medical authorities on the use of Water in Cholera. — Neg- 
lect of Bathing in Medical Practice generally. — Water treatment in Cholera. — Di- 
arrhea preceding Cholera. — How to be Treated. — The great Thirst in Cholera.— 
Warm Water-drinking. — Cold Water with Calomel. — Cold Water promotes the 
Circulation. — Hot Water in Cholera. — Vomiting and Discharges from the Bow- 
els.— Warm Water-Injections. — Vomiting by Water. — Injection of Warm Water 
into the Veins. Hot Applications externally, bad in Cholera. — Spasms, how re- 
lieved. — Cold Perspiration in Cholera. — Stage of Collapse. — Priessnitz's Treatment 
of Cholera. — The Persian Treatment. — Difference between Water ana Drug-Treat- 
ment. — Conclusion ?/ 



• 



Entered, according to act of Cong„ „bs, in the year 1843, by 

FOWLERS & WELLS, 

tft the Clerk's Office of the Di*tr~'t Court for the Southern District of New York. 



^ 



,\* 



^ 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

Definition of the term " Cholera." — Meaning of M Contagion and Infection." —Is the 
Cholera a Contagious Disease? — Causes of Cholera. — Fear a Cause of Epidemics. 
— Anger. — Excessive Grief. — Mental Distress from Want. — Sympathy a Cause of 
Disease. — Drunkenness and Intemperance. — Prostitution. — Filthiness and Degrada- 
tion. — Atmosphere and Electricity. — Animal and Vegetable Diet. — Howard, the 
Philanthropist.— Bible Christians in Philadelphia. — Conclusion Page 9 

LECTURE II. 

Recapitulation. — Manner of an attack of Cholera. — Symptoms of Cholera. — First 
stage. — Second stage. — Stage of Collapse. — Length of time Cholera patients live. — 
Nature of Cholera — Medical Authority on the Treatment of Cholera. — Dr. Elliotson.— 
Dr. Watson.— Dr. Marshall Hall.— Dr. Billing.— Dr. Scouttetten.— Dr. J. V. C 
Smith. — Dr. Wood. — Dr. Dunglinson. — Dr. Mackintosh. — Dr. Condie.— Dr. P. C 
Tappen. — Philadelphia Board of Health. — Dr. Parkes. — Dr. Broussais. — London 
Morning Chronicle. — Drs. Bell and Condie on Saline Injection into the Veins and 
Arteriotomy. — Blood-letting. — Di. Tappen' s Remarks thereon. — Homeopathic 
Treatment — Closing Remarks .... 42 



LECTURE III. 

The System of Water-cure ; a Pictur3 showing what it is. — Water one of the Leading 
Constituents of all Living Bodies. — The Human Body composed mostly of Water. 
— Life may be Sustained for weeks by Water alone. — Facts in proof thereof. — Wa- 
ter assuages Hunger. — Remedial uses of Water. — Animals take to Water when 
poisoned. — Boerhaave's theory of Fever. — Stimulating practice in Fevers and Inflam- 
matory Diseases wrong. — The cooling Regimen the most natural and the best. — Wa- 
ter the greatest of a,! Tonics. — Facts from Howard. — Dr. Baynard. — Dr. Hancock.— 
Dr. Adam Clarke. — Sir John Floyer and Dr. Baynard. — A Fever case. — Cold Wa- 
ter in Scalds and Burns. — Medical authorities on the use of Water in Cholera. — Neg- 
lect of Bathing in Medical Practice generally. — Water treatment in Cholera. — Di- 
arrhea preceding Cholera. — How to be Treated. — The great Thirst in Cholera.— 
Warm Water-drinking. — Cold Water with Calomel. — Cold Water promotes the 
Circulation. — Hot Water in Cholera. — Vomiting and Discharges from the Bow- 
els. — Warm Water-Injections. — Vomiting by Water. — Injection of Warm Water 
into the Veins. Hot Applications externally, bad in Cholera. — Spasms, how re- 
lieved . — Cold Perspiration in Cholera. — Stage of Collapse. — Priessnitz's Treatment 
of Cholera. — The Persian Treatment. — Difference between Water ana Drug-Treat- 
ment. — Conclusion ?f 



PREFACE. 



On the evenings of the second and fourth of December, 1848, 
the author gave two lectures, in Clinton Hall, New York, on The 
Water- Treatment as a Means of Prevention and Cure of Cholera, 
The day after the last lecture, it was publicly announced that the 
dread disease had already appeared at Quarantine, Staten Island, 
opposite the city. The lectures were afterward written out at 
greater length, and have thus made three instead of two. In this 
form they are now given to the public. 

It will strike many, no doubt, as very strange, that the advocates 
of the old school practice are so at variance on the treatment of 
cholera. The writer hopes that this little work will do some good, 
in showing forth the fallacies of the old modes in their true light. 

Prevention of disease is the noblest of all medical subjects; and 
the author is persuaded, that if persons will follow the directions of 
this work in regard to water-drinking, daily bathing, abstaining from 
all alcoholic stimulants, tobacco, tea, coffee, and all medicinal sub- 
stances, at the same time observing a consistent and well-regulated 
diet — such as brown bread, unbolted wheat or rye mush, good and 
ripe vegetables and fruits, with a moderate allowance of milk and 
pure soft water as the only drink — they will find great benefit aris- 
ing therefrom. Multitudes of people there are in our country, 
who need just such advice, to enable them to regain that best of 
all earthly blessings, firm and enduring health. 

It is hoped this little work will be especially useful, in teaching 
people how to prevent disease. 

New York, January, 1849. 



LECTURES ON CHOLERA 



LECTURE I 



Definition of the word " Cholera." — Meaning of " Contagion" and "Infection.' — Is the 
Cholera a Contagious Disease ? — Causes of Cholera. — Fear a Cause of Epidemics. 
— Anger.— Excessive Grief. — Mental Distress from Want. — Sympathy a Cause of 
Disease. — Drunkenness and Intemperance. — Prostitution. — Filthiness and Degrada- 
tion. — Atmosphere and Electricity. — Animal and Vegetable Diet. — Howard the 
Philanthropist. — Bible Christians in Philadelphia. — Conclusion. 



DEFINITION OF THE TERM " CHOLERA." 

Cholera signifies a flow of bile ; " cholera morbus,'* 
a morbid flow of bile. The term cholera, then, as used 
in modern times, is not correct, because, in the disease 
proper, there is no flow or discharge of bile whatever. 
The entire absence of bile in matters vomited and pass- 
ed by the bowels, is a characteristic feature of the dis- 
ease. Cholera, like many other medical terms, is used 
in a sense directly the opposite of its true and original 
signification. The term, however, is well understood > 
and that is sufficient for all practical purposes. 

MEANING OF " CONTAGION" ANI? " INFECTION." 



The word " contagion" (from contango, to meet or 
touch) signifies, properly, the application of some mor- 
bid or poisonous matter to the body, through the medi- 
Mm of touch. A contagious disease is taken by a per* 



10 IS CHOLERA CONTAGIOUS? 

son coming in contact with another diseased, or by his 
being, in some mode or other, subjected to the morbid 
matter passing from the diseased body of the one affected 
An infectious disease is one the principle of which 
exists in the atmosphere, without any relation or refer- 
ence to the bodies of the sick. An infectious disease, 
then, is taken as easily without coming in contact with 
the sick as it may be with. If a disease is infectious 
and not contagious, all quarantine regulations are use- 
less ; and, in this case, there is no more danger in attend- 
ing, nursing, or being with the sick, than in not doing 
so. This is an important practical distinction between 
contagious and infectious diseases 

is the cholera a contagious disease ? 

This is a difficult question to determine, if indeed that 
be possible at all. It is a " vexed question." Much 
proof may be brought on both sides. It is very certain, 
I think, that cholera is not contagious in the same de- 
gree as small-pox, and some other diseases. If it were 
strictly contagious — or, at least, contagious in the same 
degree as small-pox — it would live perpetually in a city 
like London, Paris, or New York, and not of itself soon 
pass away, as it always has done. Besides, many per- 
sons have been much among cholera patients — physi- 
cians, nurses, and attendants — and yet have not received 
the disease. Persons have slept with triose having the 
cholera, dressed blisters for them, and nursed them in 
all manner of ways, remaining with them constantly 
night and day, and yet have not suffered an attack. We 
know, therefore that cholera cannot be contagious in 
the same degree as small-pox, measles, scarlatina, and 



CAISES OF CHOLERA. 11 

the like. Probaoly a 1 epidemic diseases — ofiseases thai 
rage, or come upon great numbers at the same time — 
are, to a greater or less extent, contagious. The bodies 
of persons suffering with such diseases, doubtless throw 
off matter that has a tendency to produce the same form 
of disease in others, whose systems are in a low condi- 
tion of health. 

I believe a large majority of medical writers regard 
cholera as not a contagious disease. 

It appears, generally, that men are most subject to 
cholera, women less so, and children least. 

CAUSES OF CHOLERA. 

Whether cholera is, or is not, a contagious disease, 
we know that certain classes of persons are far more 
subject to it than others ; and investigations of this kind 
are far more useful in a practical view, than those con- 
cerning the question of contagion and non-contagion. 

Judging from all the facts of cholera, we may lay 
down the following axiom: that whatever tends in any 
way to depress or deteriorate the general health of the 
individual, must necessarily render the system more Ha- 
ble to an attack; and, growing out of this, another axi- 
om : that whatever tends to fortify and establish the gen- 
eral health of the individual, is a natural means of en- 
abling the system to ward off the disease. 

These are self-evident principles, and cannot be too 
well remembered or acted upon — not only w T ith refer- 
ence to cholera, but every known malady, and especially 
diseases of epidemic kind. This being premised, I will 
proceed to explain some of the more prominent causes 
of epidemic disease. 



12 THE EFFECTS OF FEAR 

FEAB A CAUSE OF EPIDEMICS. 

Fear is one of the most prolific among the causes of 
epidemic disease. It is an old saying, that fear kills 
more than the plague. " Fear," says Haller, " diminish- 
es the powers of the body, enfeebles the movements of 
the heart, and weakens the circulation. Influenced by 
this passion, the scurvy and other diseases become more 
fatal, putrid and other contagious maladies acquire more 
malignity, and the body becomes more disposed to be 
affected by pestilential miasmata." 

When a disease like the cholera or the yellow fever 
comes among any people, the utmost consternation pre- 
vails. Exaggerations are multiplied on every hand. 
The laws of health not being by the many at all 
studied or understood, and there being, moreover, a 
general belief that disease is a thing of God's own 
sending, without any reference to errors in the volun- 
tary habits of the individuals and communities of the 
race, fear, and fear only, can be the legitimate result. 
I am acquainted with an intelligent clergyman, who in 
1832 was upon the steamboat passing from Quebec to 
Montreal, when the first case of cholera happened in 
the latter city. It was sounded abroad in every quar- 
ter that the cholera had reached the city. The death 
took place in the night-time, and in the morning and 
throughout the day many cases occurred. No doubt 
now, in this city, the cholera might be caused any day, 
provided the public could be made to believe that the 
disease was actually, with all its terribleness, in our 
very midst. In the spotted fever, or cold plague, as 
some termed it, that broke out in and spread over a 
great part of New England, about forty years ago, it 



THf. EFrBCIS OF FEAR. 13 

was ascertained that not onlv delicate females, but the 
most robust men, and even physicians, fell prostrate and 
almost lifeless, with all the apparent symptoms of a 
violent attack of that disease ; but which, according to 
their own subsequent confession, was entirely the effect 
of fear. And what adds greatly to the mischief in such 
cases, a great variety of destructive compounds in the 
way of specifics, elixirs, etc., are swallowed by the 
multitude, in the old belief that disease is a fixed some- 
thing within the body, which a medicine may be taken 
to kill ! I repeat, one of the most prolific of all causes 
of disease is fear. A fable should teach us wisdom in 
this matter : A pilgrim, meeting the plague going into 
Smyrna, asked, " What are you going for ?" " To kill 
three thousand people," answered the plague. Some 
time after they met again. " But you killed thirty 
thousand people," said the pilgrim. " No," answered 
the plague ; " I killed but three thousand — it was fear 
killed the rest." 

It is to be observed, also, that fear is itself contagious. 
A person in fear brings those who are about him into 
the same condition. Suppose a physician, when treat- 
ing a patient, exhibits fear : what success does he meet 
with ? If nothing worse, a dismissal from the case, as 
he ought to have. People would much rather die, if 
die they must, by the side of a strong man, even if he 
be unskillful, rather than a scientific man, if he be liable 
to the impression of fear. 

There is an opinion with many that physicians " take 
something," by which they are kept more free from 
epidemic and contagious diseases. But the truth is, 
they do not, as a general fact, fear disease as the com 
mon people do ; and they are, therefore, to say the 



14 FEAR IN KRIS. 

least, not more .Sable than those who are among the 
sick much less than they are. 

" All persons, or at least those who have not uncom- 
mon courage and firmness of character," says Brous- 
sais, " should avoid the sight of patients suffering with 
cholera, as there is something very frightful in the con- 
tortions of their countenance ; and one must be accus- 
tomed to attend patients in order to behold with indif- 
ference so terrible a spectacle." 

In the time of cholera in Paris, in 1832, the royal 
family, we are told, set a noble example by remaining 
in the city; and the heir apparent, the lamented Duke 
of Orleans, made a personal tour of inspection through 
the hospitals. Casimer Perier (the President of the 
Council) accompanied him, and " this was an incontesti- 
ble proof of courage on the part of a man who had 
carried the seeds of death within him, whose nerves 
were irritable to excess, and who shuddered at the mere 
idea of a coffin." He is said never to have recovered 
from the impression, and died in three weeks afterward. 

There is a highly wrought account of the effects of 
fear in the city of Paris, when the cholera raged with 
unheard-of violence and devastation in 1832. The 
deaths at one time were calculated at one thousand and 
three hundred, to one thousand and four hundred per 
day. Hearses falling short, artillery wagons were used 
instead. These having no springs, the violent jolting 
burst the coffins, and the bodies were thrown :>ut, and 
the pavements were stained with their blood. The 
people went mad with terror, believing the wildest fic- 
tions, and indulged in the most dreadful atrocities. It 
.was rumored that the deaths were all owing to poison, 
and tb *^re was no such thing as cholera. Then you 



ANGER AND GRIEF. 15 

might behold all the horrid secrets of a mode *n civili- 
zation, displayed in the rolling billows of a seething 
population. From those darksome quarters where mis- 
ery hides its forgotten head, the capital was inundated 
by multitudes of bare-armed men, whose gloomy faces 
glared with hate. What sought they ? What did they 
demand ? They never told this, only they explored the 
city with prying eyes, and ran about with ferocious 
muttering. Murders soon occurred. A Jew was kill- 
ed because he laughed in a strange manner, and carried 
a packet of white powder (which turned out to be cam- 
phor) in his hand. A young man was butchered for 
looking into a wine-seller's window, and a coal porter 
made his dog tear the dead body.* 

ANGER 

Doubtless is sufficient, in some cases, to cause the 
cholera. Anger we know causes violent fits of the 
spasmodic cholic ; so, too, it may bring on the cholera 
in some instances. A state of uniform equableness of 
temper, feelings, and disposition, cannot be too strongly 
recommended, as a means of prevention in all pestilen- 
tial d'seases. 

EXCESSIVE GRIEF 

Is well known often to have a powerful effect in caus- 
ing disease. Every one who has lost a wife, a husband, 
parent, child, or bosom friend, well knows the depress- 
ing effect which grief has had upon them at the time. 
Especially when the disease is of a sudden, dangerous, 
and terrific character, grief is found to do its most fear- 
nil work. Let us imagine that a man goes to rest at 

* London Morning Chronicle. 



10 MENIAL SUFFERING. 

night with his family, all in apparent good health, and 
long before the sur shines out upon him in the morning, 
his wife, with all the agonies of cholera, becomes a 
corpse in his arms, and in a few hours more his only 
child ; is it any wonder that, under such circumstances, 
he, too, should be struck down wLh the same disease? 
From all the facts that can be gathered on the subject, 
it is evident that grief has a very powerful influence as 
a proximate cause of the cholera. 



MENTAL DISTRESS FROM WANT. 

Mental distress, arising from destitution and want, 
may act as a powerful cause of epidemic disease. A 
husband and father, poor in this world's riches, has bu- 
ried the mother of his children, the companion of his best 
and happiest days. A widow, with her children about 
her, toiling with anxious solicitude by day and by night, 
that she may keep them under her own paternal roof, 
rather than leave them to be provided for by the cold 
charities of the world ; anxious, as by pawning her arti- 
cles of dress, she pays her last cent for an exorbitant 
rent, being not able to imagine what merciful dispensa- 
tion of providence can provide her for the next quarter 
day, or even with bread to eat. Such things, I need not 
repeat, occur every day, even in our American cities, 
where the people are the happiest and best provided for 
of any on the globe. Need it be said, that mental dis- 
tress, arising from destitution and want, causing depres- 
sion of spirits, anxiousness for the future, yes, for the 
bare bread one is to eat, wil act, in many cases, as a 
cause of the cholera, should that dreaded pestilence 
again come among us ? 



SYMPATHY ITS EFFECTS, 17 

SYMPATHY A CAUSE OF DISEASE. 

What may be called sympathy in the human consti- 
tution, should throw light on the causes of cholera and 
other epidemic diseases. At the venerable old Cathe- 
dral of Notre Dame, in Paris, it was found necessary to 
allow no person to go upon its towers alone. Every 
one must have a companion, because it became gener- 
ally understood that nervous people were very apt to 
throw themselves off. So, too, over the top of the Fire 
Monument, in London, there was put an iron rack work, 
so that people could not precipitate themselves from that 
height. In some hospitals, hysteric fits have caused the 
same symptoms in others ; indeed, we see this thing 
often exemplified. You have heard of the account of 
the poor-house for children, at Harlsem, in Holland, 
where a girl from some cause, fell into convulsions, or 
a kind of convulsive disease, and which, being witnessed 
by the other children, communicated itself to nearly all 
of them. And the learned Boerhaave could find no other 
mode of putting a stop to the disease, except by prepar- 
ing red-hot irons in the presence of the patients, at the 
same time declaring most solemnly, that any one who 
should manifest the least symptom of the disease, should 
be forthwith burnt to the bene. Other nervous diseases, 
as the St. Vitus's dance, have been known to become 
epidemic by sympathy. 

When the cholera raged before in Europe, it is said 
that the intrepid gayety of the French seemed at first to 
brave off the terrible disease. Amid the festivities of 
Mid-Lent, the streets and Boulevards were thronged as 
is usual on such occasions, and the people in great num- 
bers amused themselves by looking at caricatures in the 



16 RELIGIOUS EPIDEMICS. 

shop windows, the subject of which was the cholera 
morbus— a strange subject, certainly, for caricature, and 
such as none but a Frenchman could have conceived 
of. Now, at this very time, the cholera broke out in 
Paris in such terribleness as has seldom if ever been 
equaled elsewhere. As ever, there were here vari- 
ous causes at work, but one among the rest, doubt- 
less, was the effect of sympathy in looking at those 
strangest of all exhibitions, the caricatures of cholera 
morbus. 

The religious epidemics, as they may be not inaptly 
termed, should be mentioi H m this connection. In one 
part of the country, persons are struck down, as it were 
dead, by the inscrutable power of God, as is believed. 
Every one has seen these things among that worthy de- 
nomination, who do more to spread the gospel every 
where than any other, the Methodists. Among the 
colored people we see, under a state of excitement, the 
audiences often become affected with violent spasmodic 
motions of the head, limbs, and other parts of the body. 
Years ago, in the Southwestern states, there was a pre- 
vailing religious excitement in which the subjects were 
affected with what was denominated the "jerks." Peo 
pie would gather themselves together in large circles 
for prayer, when one after another would become affect- 
ed, until all experienced those particular symptoms, 
which were regarded as the most positive and indubita- 
ble evidence of the operation of the Holy Spirit in the 
soul. Even wicked young men, scoffers of religion, 
who entered these circles in a spirit of derision, intend- 
ing to practice a deception upon the religious, were as- 
tonished and confounded to find themselves affected in 
the same way. Such became often powerfully impress- 



INTEMPERANCE. 19 

ed, and in many instances went away converted, as they 
believed. The eccentric Lorenzo Dow saw, in some 
of the Southern states, one of the Carolinas, I think, 
people become affected with what he called the " kicks." 
Where the meetings were held, saplings were cut off, 
breast high, for the people to hold upon when they were 
affected with the " kicks ;" and their motions were so 
energetic, that the ground about these saplings looked 
as if horses had been there, stamping at flies. The 
really pious, he says, were not affected by the symp- 
toms ; it was the lazy, lukewarm professor, who was 
most subject ; and those who wanted to get the " kicks" 
to philosophize upon, were not affected at all. How 
much the principle in question had to do in the causa- 
tion of the Salem witchcraft, I will not assume to de- 
termine. I mention all these things in no spirit of irrev- 
erence, but merely because they are calculated to throw 
light upon the subject of the causes of epidemic disease. 

DRUNKENNESS AND INTEMPERANCE, 

The temperance reformation, although coming far 
short of what it should accomplish, has yet done a vast 
amount of good ; and this good is not confined merely 
to matters of a moral kind. It is a fact worthy of ob- 
servation, that in 1832 the profession generally recom- 
mended a generous diet, including also the "moderate" 
use of wine, brandy, and the like. There were then 
those who objected to fermented, drinks, but yet recom- 
mended wine instead ; and through this, great quantities 
of vile mixtures of whiskey, logwood, etc., etc., were 
palmed off upon the people for wine. Such will doubt- 
less again be the case, in those parts of our country 



20 TEMPERANCE. 

where people are not sufficiently enlightened to be 
guarded on the subject. 

At this moment, Dec. 28th, 1848, tnere came news tG 
us that the cholera is raging in New Orleans. A writer 
in a New York paper tells us, that " the bar-rooms have 
been filled for the past two days, and inordinate quanti- 
ties of brandy, which is said to be a preventive, are 
consumed," and that great numbers become intoxicated. 
Why did not the cholera rage in New York, when it 
appeared a few weeks since here, as it did in 1832? Is 
it said, because the season was unfavorable? I answer, 
the extreme warmth and closeness, so to say, of the 
atmosphere, was remarkably favorable for the spread 
of the disease. Such exceedingly warm weather was 
never known in the month of December, as this year. 
But the cholera has had now, as it hereafter must have, 
hard work to get much hold of New Yorkers ; the tem- 
perance reformation has done too much. The Southern 
cities will suffer most, and in great part because the peo- 
ple are far more intemperate than in the North. 

I have not time here to enter into an explanation of 
the philosophy of the action of alcohol on the human 
frame, but will merely remark, that alcoholic drinks, of 
whatever name or kind, always necessarily irritate the 
entire track of the mucous membrane of the stomach 
and alimentary canal, more than two thousand square 
inches in extent, and therefore predispose the system to 
this fearful disease. 

In Great Britain, the temperance reformation has gone 
mostly among the poor. When Father Matthew first went 
to London, there was but one clergyman in the whole 
city to stand by him in his benevolent work. He could 
gain influence only with the pocr. He did not obtain 



SPIRIT-DRINKING. 21 

{.ledges of the rich, for he could not, if he had tried — 
only among the poor, such as the Five-Points people of 
this city. The cholera does not rage in Great Britain 
now as it did before, nor any thing like. This, we have 
every reason to believe, is caused in part by what the 
temperance reformation has already accomplished there. 

It is plain, from all authority, that this disease 
manifests a decided preference for the intemperate 
every where. Often it has passed harmless over a wide 
population of temperate country people, to commit its 
most terrible ravages upon the drunkards of another 
locality. 

I will now cite some facts on the subject of temper- 
ance, as bearing on cholera. 

Dr. Sewall, of Washington, while on a visit to the 
cholera hospitals of New York in 1832, wrote, that of 
two hundred and four cases of cholera in the Park Hos- 
pital, there were only six temperate persons, and these 
had recovered ; and when he wrote, one hundred and 
twenty-two of the others had died. 

Dr. Mussey stated, in reference to the prevalence of 
the disease in the city of Albany: "Cholera prevailed 
for several weeks, attended with a severe mortality ; 
and it is a remarkable fact, that during its whole period, 
it is not known that more than two individuals out of 
the five thousand members of the Temperance Societies 
n that city, became its victims. " 

The French Academy said, in 1832, "it is especially 
necessary to avoid spirituous liquors." And again : 
"The abuse of wine, brandy, and spirituous liquors, al- 
most inevitably causes the cholera: we cannot repeat 
this too often to those who sometimes indulge in these 
excesses." The cholera raged principally among the 



22 SPIRIT-DRINKING. 

poor in Paris, the subjects of which were almost al .n- 
temperate. 

Dr. Rhinelander, who, together with Dr. DeKay, was 
deputed from New York, to visit Canada, for the pur- 
pose of making investigations concerning the best modes 
of prevention and cure of cholera, wrote as follows : 
'' We may ask who are its victims ? I answer, the in- 
temperate ; it invariably cuts them off." 

It is said that in Poland nine tenths of all who died 
of cholera, before it reached this country in 1832, were 
addicted to habits of. strong drink. 

Mr. Greenhow, of England, says that " innumerable 
instances might be brought forward wherein the attack 
supervened either during the continuance of, or imme- 
diately subsequent to, excessive indulgence in ardent 
spirits. Such was the case in two of the earliest in- 
stances that occurred in Newcastle, those of Eddy and 
Mills ; and others have come under my observation." 
And this author very properly remarks : " Nor will it 
admit of a question, that the habitual use of ardent 
spirits greatly diminishes the healthy tone of the sto- 
mach and bowels, and induces an irritable condition of 
the mucous lining." Such remarks by a man living in 
a country of such universal drinking as England, and 
at a time when the temperance question had been so 
little agitated, exhibits a correctness of physiological 
and pathological knowledge altogether in advance of 
the mass of the profession at the time. 

Dr. Scouttetten, of Strasbourg, in speaking of the 
causes of cholera, mentions " the abuse of alcoholic 
liquors and of all too stimulant substances." At 
Warsaw, the individuals affected generally belonged to 
the lowest class. Their condition, say Messrs. Briere 



CHOLERA AT OYSTER BAY. 23 

and Legallois, is wretched ; their wants are extreme, 
and their food is very coarse brown bread, potato whis- 
key, salted meat and herrings, cheese of the country, 
and a paste made of water, which is very difficult of 
digestion; their habitations are very dirty, and are 
poorly ventilated, or not at all ; they are situated on the 
borders of the Vistula, and are in fact mere drains ; 
hence it is in this part, and in the low and narrow 
streets, that sickness and death are the most frequent." 

Dr. Condie, of Philadelphia, remarked that in many 
cases occurring in old drunkards, where complete reac- 
tion has been established (after the state of collapse), 
and the patient has been convalescent for two or three 
days, delirium tremens has come. In all these cases, 
save one, which he had seen, the patient died. 

Ordinarily, before an attack of cholera, there is with 
the patient more or less of indigestion ; but Broussais 
observed that men who were in good health, having 
been intoxicated, have been seized the day following 
with cholera, though they had experienced no previous 
indigestion. Such are the pernicious and health-de- 
stroying effects of alcoholic stimulants on the human 
system, even in health. No wonder, then, that cholera 
comes hard upon old topers and habitual dram-drinkeis. 

There happened on Long Island, at a small village 
with which I am well acquainteJ, some cases of cholera, 
which, on a small scale, strikingly exemplify the perni- 
cious effects of spirit-drinking. At this village — Oyster 
Bay, situated about thirty miles from the city of New 
York, on the north side of Long Island — there lived, in 
1832, about fifty colored persons of various ages. 
Some clothes of a colored woman who had died in the 
city, were taken to the place. These were thought to 



24 CHOLERA AT OYSTER BAY. 

generate the cholera at this place. The colored in- 
habitants were all, or nearly all of them, very intemper- 
ate. In about one month's time, thirty-one or thirty- 
two of the fifty had been attacked, and of these twenty- 
one died. Only one white person, who also was a 
dram-drinker, was attacked with the disease. He had 
been laboring with a colored man, who was taken down 
with cholera, and took it from him, as would seem. 
These colored people were so degraded in their feelings 
and habits, that they could be induced to bury the dead 
only by being offered a gallon of rum as a reward. 
The authorities gave this, for no white persons could be 
found who would undertake the revolting task. All 
believed the disease contagious ; but yet the negroes 
would do any thing for the sake of the rum. One old 
man lost his wife very suddenly ; fought over her grave 
as she was being buried, himself nearly falling into it, 
and it was necessary to separate him and his antagonist 
by main force, as if they were fighting brutes. The 
same night the miserable old man, who was a fiddler, 
went and fiddled all night at a ball. These facts were 
given me by Dr. Lucius Kellogg, a very worthy citizen 
and physician of the place, and who lived there at the 
time alluded to, and himself attended personally many 
of the cases. 

These facts of Oyster Bay prove what intemperance, 
in connection with other bad habits, may do in causing 
cholera. Some regard pure water and fine air quite suf- 
ficient to keep off an attack. But in no known place 
are the water and air better than at this most beautiful 
locality. I do not believe that a healthier place 3an be 
found in the whole United States, and yet we see how 
sad was the result of cholera among the intemperate. 



PROSTITUTION. 26 



PROSTITUTION, 



Intemperance anc. prostitution go hand in hand. AH 
of that unfortunate and much-neglected class of per- 
sons who follow a life of infamy, are habitually intem- 
perate. They of all others are most subject to the 
dread epidemic of which we are speaking. In a single 
street of Paris, where resided thirteen hundred of this 
class of persons, we are told, on good authority, that in 
a very short period twelve hundred perished with 
cholera ! and that in another, containing sixty persons, 
every one died ! When cholera rages in a great city, 
and comes upon persons of this class, it is sad to think 
how soon often the husky, hollow, unearthly voice of 
the prostitute becomes stilled in death ! Could the most 
abandoned, God-forsaken mother on earth know upon 
her death-bed that her daughter should come to such 
an end, how would it add to the death-agonies even of 
a harlot ! 

There is a very unpleasant subject, akin to this, of 
which it is my duty to speak. With persons of licen- 
tious habits, these terrible evils do not come upon one 
sex alone. The great Broussais, of Paris, tells us that 
one of his colleagues, a professor in the military hos- 
pital of "Val-de-Grace, informed him of numerous ex- 
amples of students who were seized with the cholera, 
after having visited a house of ill-fame; and that all 
those physicians who had studied the disease at War- 
saw, in Russia, and other places, have observed similar 
facts. With no class of persons than the licentious, is 
the saying more true, "The way of the transgressor 



IS HARD." 



26 DOSING AND DRUGGING. 



DOSING AND DRUGGING. 



The interminate, never-satisfied, and never-ending 
dosings, with the ten thousand " cure alls" which the 
American people, above all other nations, are fond of, 
will prove a most prolific source of any and every ra- 
ging disease. Suppose we are to follow the advice of a 
New England divine, "Fear God and keep the bowels 
open ;" it does not follow, necessarily, that we must keep 
dosing, dosing, continually therefor. Dosing is perilous 
in the cholera. Dr. Mackintosh, of Edinburgh, who had 
much opportunity for observation in this disease, said he 
had seen several people sink rapidly into a fatal collapse, 
during the cholera epidemic, under the operation of 
aperient medicine ; persons who had no previous bowel 
complaint, but felt only slight oppression, which they 
imagined would be relieved by an action of the bowels. 
Persons, in their ignorance and disregard of hygienic 
rules, are ever ready to go on gorging their stomachs 
with food, crude and indigestible, and such as would 
give a hyena a " fit of dyspepsia," and then expect that, 
by dosing their bowels right earnestly, their physical 
sins will thus be atoned for. Think of a person eating 
sausages, smoked meat, and tripe, well charged with 
pepper, mustard, and the like, and then a good dose of 
pills withal, what suppose you would be the result in 
cholera times ? 

It is easy for us to see that, if the cholera should again 
prevail among us, there would be great numbers of spe- 
cifics advertised for the disease, and not only advertised, 
but actually bought and swallowed. I need not cite you 
that even now, in ordinary times, our papers are well 
filled with the thousand-and-one infallib.e specifics to 



DIETETIC IMPROPRIETIES. 27 

cure all manner of maladies, from the pimple on the 
face to the most inveterate consumption. Witness how 
ignorant pretenders, and villainous quacks, every day 
grow rich in their vile traffickings in this free country 
of ours, and you have the evidence of a degree of super- 
stition, ignorance, and credulity, that has never been ex- 
ceeded in any age. 

Already in our city, there is a medicine for cholera 
advertised, with the plausible statement that people must 
send for a physician as soon as possible, when they are 
attacked, but that this medicine is the best possible, and 
perfectly safe to be taken, before the doctor can be got. 
How very considerate are these medicine venders of the 
public health ! 

DIETETIC IMPROPRIETIES. 

In regard to dietetic habits, it should be remembered, 
that comparatively trifling excesses are, in certain states 
of the system, often sufficient to derange seriously the 
general health. Remember, too, that attacks of cholera 
are invariably preceded by more or less disturbance of 
the digestive organs. True, this is sometimes so slight 
that the individual may not notice it ; but such, how 
ever, is the fact. Without previously disordered digest- 
ive organs, to a greater or less extent, no individual 
could ever experience an attack of this fearful dis 
ease. 

Every one must have noticed how easily the system 
becomes deranged by dietetic improprieties, when the 
stomach and bowels were already in a disordered state 
Who does not know that a little too much, even of the 
best nnd most healthful forms of food, sets one at once 
2 



28 RIOTOUS LIVING. 

back into a troublesome diarrhea that had just been 
cured ? And does not every sensible practitioner un- 
derstand, that dietetic improprieties are by far the most 
frequent causes of those terrible relapses in acute dis- 
eases of the stomach and bowels ; relapses which al- 
ways cost the practitioner so much anxiety, and the 
patient so much suffering, and not unfrequently his 
life ? As you value life, be careful, in cholera time, of 
diet, whenever there is in your system the least disorder 
of the digestive ogans. 

There are facts in abundance that prove, beyond all 
doubt, the ill effects of" riotous living," in causing the out- 
breaks of disease. Thus the great Dr. Benjamin Rush was 
in the habit of telling his students in his lectures, that he 
had for many years observed a very great increase in the 
number of cases of acute disease on the fifth and sixth 
days of July ; and this, he said, was undoubtedly caused by 
the excesses of the fourth. And Dr. Greenhow, of New- 
castle-on-the-Tyne, England, tells us that the extraordi- 
nary irruption of the disease at Gateshead, in the midst 
of the Christmas feastings, offers a remarkable example 
of the dietetic and drinking excesses. The French 
Academy said, " that all excesses in eating, even a slight 
indigestion, during the reign of the cholera, is almost 
certain to produce the disease." In New York there 
was found to be a disproportionate increase of new 
cases of cholera, immediately after the celebration of 
the fourth of July, in precise accordance with the fact? 
noticed by Dr. Rush in other acute diseases. After 
there was a decline of the disease at Riga, the occur- 
rence of the Whitsun holidays was immediately fallow- 
ed by an augmentation of fresh cases of cholera- As 
cholera began to rage in Paris, many thought to ward 



WASH AND BATH IOUSES. 29 

off the disease by hilarity and excess. The theatres 
were crowded in the evening, and there were young 
men, who, in the extravagance of their foolhardiness, 
plunged into unusual excesses. Since we are to die to- 
morrow, they said, let us exhaust all the joys of life to- 
day. Most of these rash youths, we are told, " passed 
from the masked ball to the Hotel Dieu, and died before 
sunset the next day." 

FILTHINESS AND DEGRADATION. 

Cholera, as is true of all pestilential diseases, comes 
first among the low, miserable, and filthy of the cities. 
There should be in New York, and every American 
city, free baths and wash-houses for promoting clean- 
liness among the poor. I saw last winter, in London 
one of these establishments used also for lodging poor 
persons, in Rosemary Lane. This is not far from 
Spitalfields, the great "Five Points" of London — a dis- 
trict covering the space of a square mile — St. Giles 
the former "Five Points," having been renovated bj 
the authorities, its streets widened, and the poor scat- 
tered about. It would be difficult for an American to 
conceive of the utter squalidness and misery of the peo- 
ple of some parts of London, without visiting them ; and 
yet there is a much better state of things now than 
there was before the temperance reformation began. 
The Health-of-Towns Associations are also doing much 
to better the condition of the ooor. In the bathing es- 
tablishment above mentioned, a large number of poor 
people congregated every night. Four hundred and 
fifty could be accommodated at a time, and great num- 
bers had to go away beside. There were people of the 



30 BATH AND WASH HOUSES. 

very lowest class, beggars, thieves, the lowest prosti- 
tutes, and such as had no home but the streets. The 
name and age of every one were registered in a large 
book, together with other particulars, as to where they 
were from, their occupation, where they had lodged the 
-light before, etc. Those only who declared that they 
had no tr.pney were received. Everyone w r as required 
at finst to perform a thorough ablution with soap and 
tepid water, so that for once they might have a clean 
skin, for it was in many instances doubtless the first 
time in their life. Then, after the bath, a half-pound of 
the very best London bread was given to each person ; 
and the bread in London is bread, and not such stuff as 
the people require our bakers to get up in New York. 
England, with all her misery, has science, and she ap- 
plies it to every thing — even to that small matter, as 
people regard it, making bread. But there was one 
great mistake in this matter ; the bread was superfine, 
which is always bad — bad, because it is so rich that 
neither man nor animal can long subsist upon it ; where- 
as the bread from unbolted flour, containing in itself 
a proper portion of innutritious with the nutritious matter 
will sustain life any desirable time. I said to the Super 
impendent, " Why do you not give these people brown 
bread, which would be so much better for them?" He 
said he knew it was so, but they would not eat it ; many 
would curse them for it, and cast it into the street. 
After this bread-and-water repast, these people were 
lodged — not exactly upon a bed, but in rows on the soft 
side of a hard floor. Each one had a little box by him 
self, and the whole floor was covered with these divi- 
sions, with the exception of the narrowest aisles to walk 
among them. There was a little angular elevation of 



PHILADELPHIA 30ARD OF HEALTH. 31 

plank for the head to rest upon — and even that served 
as a pillow for which many a poor man was thankful 
enough. One skin coverlet served as a covering for 
each. The rooms were large and airy, warmed and 
well ventilated, and each sex had its own apartment. 
Men, women, boys, and girls were not here huddled to* 
gether half-naked, as in multitudes of penny and two- 
penny lodging houses in certain parts of London, or as 
in the steerages of our world-renowned American ships. 
In these bath and washing establishments — and there 
are a number of them in London — religious meetings 
are held on the Sabbath ; a clergyman comes and 
preaches, and they are able to have singing, as people 
elsewhere. Such, at least, was the case in the one I 
visited. The meeting is held in the largest lodging 
room, but there are no seats except those little divisions 
spoken of, five or six inches high, the edge of the board 
forming a seat. On Sundays the people have half a 
pound of bread at noon, as well as night and morning, 
and an ounce or two of cheese extra. 

The Ragged Schools in Great Britain, are doing much 
toward bettering the condition of the poor. 

The Philadelphia Board of Health gave lately the 
following excellent advice concerning the means of pre- 
venting cholera: "Early and constant inspection of the 
yards and cellars of houses, with a removal of the rub- 
bish and filth that may be found therein; to be followed 
by thorough whitewashing and purification ; a most 
frequent cleansing of the streets and gutters, and atten- 
tion to paving and grading the same, so as to avoid ac- 
cumulations of water or garbage any where ; an especial 
attention to the cleansing of private courts and alleys 
common to several dwellings the suppression of pig* 



32 FRUITS AN3 VEGETABLES. 

sties and piggeries, cleaning foul privies with the use of 
deodorizing agents ; filling or draining of pools or ponds 
of stagnant water, and personal cleanliness by bathing ; 
in short, to keep the physical and moral man clean." 

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

There is a prevailing opinion that vegetables and 
fruits should be discarded in cholera time. But this is a 
wrong notion, and not one founded on fact. Professor 
Dunglison, of Philadelphia, remarks, that " ripe fruits and 
the succulent vegetables were generally proscribed ; the 
facts are, that in eleemosynary institutions where no such 
articles were permitted, cholera was most fatal ; that 
the disease prevailed at Moscow and St. Petersburgh, 
and elsewhere, at seasons when ripe fruits and vege- 
tables could not be procured ; that when ripe fruits were 
freely allowed, as in London, at a later period of the ep- 
demic, no inconvenience was found to result from them." 

The plain truth in this matter is, that the kinds of food 
which are in all respects best adapted to man's nature 
under ordinary circumstances, are also best during the 
prevalence of epidemic disease. 

THE ATMOSPHERE AND ELECTRICITY. 

Some believe that atmospheric changes, or a peculiar 
condition of air, is the principal cause of cholera. Some 
also believe that we are to look to electrical changes as 
the great cause. I would speak in all deference to the 
opinions of others in these matters, but it appears to me 
that very little or nothing is known about these agen- 
cies. Bad air we know is always bad ; but as to wheth- 



HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. 33 

er any particular electrical state can be identified as a 
causu of cholera, I think does not appear. 

I will close this lecture by citing some most impor- 
tant and instructive facts, not only touching diet, but the 
general hygienic regimen of the individual. I first men* 
tion 



HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. 

Howard, the philanthropist, was exposed to the influ- 
ence of pestilence and disease in its most malignant 
forms, probably more than any other human being who 
has ever lived. " This man," says one biographer, " vis- 
ited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of pal- 
aces, or the stateliness of temples ; not to make accurate 
measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to 
form a scale of the curiosities of modern art ; not to col- 
lect medals, or to collate manuscripts ; but to dive into 
the depths of dungeons ; to plunge into the infection of 
hospitals ; to survey the mansions of sorrow and of pain ; 
to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, 
and contempt ; to remember the forgotten ; to attend to 
the neglected ; to visit the forsaken ; and to compare and 
collate the distresses of all men in all countries." " He 
traveled," says another, " between fifty and sixty thou- 
sand miles, for the sole purpose of relieving the distress- 
es of the most wretched of the human race. The fa- 
tigue, the dangers, the privations he underwent or en- 
countered for the good of others, were such as no one else 
was ever exposed to in such a cause, and such as few 
could have endured. He often traveled several days 
and nights in succession, without stopping, — over roads 



34 HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROF ST. 

almost impassable, in weather the most mclement, and 
with accommodations the meanest and most wretched. 
Summer and winter, heat and cold, rain and snow, in all 
their extremes, failed alike to stay him for a moment in 
his course ; while plague, and pestilence, and famine, in- 
stead of being evils that he shunned, were those with 
which he was most familiar, and to many of whose 
horrors he voluntarily exposed himself, visiting the foul- 
est dungeons, filled with malignant infection, — spending 
forty days in a filthy and infected lazaretto, — plunging 
into military encampments where the plague was com- 
mitting its most frightful ravages, — and visiting wnere 
none of his conductors dared to accompany him." 

Under such circumstances, the habits of Howard were 
very simple, rigid, and abstemious in the extreme. In 
all seasons he made it a point of the utmost importance 
to practice daily bathing. " Water," says Dr. Aiken, 
" was one of his principal necessaries, for he was a very 
Mussulman in his ablutions ; and if nicety had place 
with him in any respect, it was in the perfect cleanliness 
of his whole person." "These ablutions," says another, 
(Dr. Brown), " he regularly performed in the depth of 
winter, by plunging into a bath whenever he had the 
opportunity of doing so, — and when he had not, he 
would frequently lay himself down for some considera- 
ble time between two sheets, wet for the express pur- 
pose of communicating to his body the desirable degree 
of cold." According to another author, " both on rising 
and going to bed, he often swathed himself in coarse 
towels, wet with the coldest water; in that state he re- 
mained half an hour, or more, and then threw them off 
freshened and invigorated, as he said, beyond measure." 
He never used a great-coat, we are told even when in 



HOWARD, IHE PHILANTHROPIST. 35 

the coldest, countries. For many of the last years of his 
existence, he tasted neither flesh, fish, or fowl ; and near 
he close of his life, he wrote in his diary, " I am firmly 
persuaded, as to the health of our bodies, that herbs and 
fruits will sustain nature, in every respect, far beyond 
the best flesh !" So prudent was he of time, that he 
strenuously avoided dining parties, nor would he sit 
when taking his simple meal of tea, milk, and rusks. 

On becoming acquainted with these singular habits 
of Howard, one would naturally be led to suppose that 
his constitution must, from the first, have been a strong 
one, capable of enduring great exposures and fatigue. 
Such, however, is not the fact. He was, when young, 
as he himself tells us, of very feeble health.* 

But notwithstanding all Howard's good habits, he no 
doubt injured himself materially by the use of tea, of 
which he was said to be very fond. 

* " A more puny youngster than myself," says Howard, " was nevei 
seen. If I wet my feet I was sure to take cold. I could not put on my 
6hirt without its being aired. To be serious, I am convinced that what 
emasculates the body debilitates the mind, and renders both unfit for those 
exertions which are of such use to us as social beings. T therefore en- 
tered upon a reform of my constitution, and have succeeded in such a de- 
gree, that I have neither had a cough, cold, the vapors, nor any more alarm- 
ing disorder, since I surmounted the seasoning. Formerly, mulled wines, 
and spirits, and great fires, were to comfort me, and to keep out the cold, 
as it is called ; the perils of the day were to be baffled by something taken 
hot on going to bed; and before I pursued my journey the next morning, 
a dram was to be swallowed to fortify the stomach! Believe me," said 
Mr. Howard, " we are too apt to invert the remedies which we ought to 
prescribe for ourselves. Thus we are forever giving hot things when we 
should administer cold. We bathe in hot instead of cold water, we use 
a dry bandage when we should use a wet one, and we increase our food 
and clothing when we should, by degrees, diminish both. 

" If we should trust more to Nature, and suffer her to apply her own 
remedies to cure her own diseases, the formidable catalogue of maladies 
would be reduced to one haU at least, of their present number." — Pratt t 
Gleanings, 1796. 

2* 



36 THE BIBLE CHRISTIANS. 

BIBLE CHRISTIANS OF PHILADELPHIA. 

Theie is, in the city of Philadelphia, a people little 
known — the Bible Christians. The members of this 
sect abstain religiously from all intoxicating substances, 
and from flesh. They aim to live temperately and 
soberly in all things. The Rev. Mr. Metcalf, of this 
sect in Philadelphia, furnished Mr. O. S. Fowler and 
myself, at our request, the following account of their 
experience duiing those fearful epidemics, the yellow 
fever and the cholera: 

"When the yellow fever broke out at the foot of 
Market street, in the autumn of 1818, my residence was 
in the immediate vicinity of the infected district, name- 
ly, in Front near Market street. There I continued 
with my family, while most of our neighbors fled from 
the site, for fear of being affected with that dread- 
ed malady ; yet we all continued to enjoy excellent 
health. The following year our experience was simi- 
lar. During the period of the cholera, I am not aware 
that any of our members were in the least affected by 
that disorder. My duty as a minister frequently led me 
to the bedside of the sick and dying poor, and often to 
perform the last obsequies over the dead ; yet, amidst 
all these painful duties, the same kind and merciful 
Providence which - tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb,' protected and preserved me in the enjoyment of 
uninterrupted health. You doubtless remember there 
were many conflicting rumors of opinions among emi- 
nent physicians and others, about the propriety of avoid- 
ng vegetables and fruits during the continuance of the 
epidemic. I have no knowledge that any of our mem- 
bers ma^e the least alteration in their accustomed mode 



VEGETABLE DIET. 37 

of diet doling that time, and yet they al f i escaped suffer- 
ing from that fatal contagion. In my own family, vege- 
tables and fruits were as freely used as in former sea- 
sons, without suffering any inconvenience." 

VEGETABLE DIET IN NEW YORK. 

The experience of those in this city who adopted a 
course similar to these Christians, was not less striking. 
It will be recollected, that Mr. Sylvester Graham was 
the means of inducing a considerable number to follow 
his peculiar modes. Mr. Graham says, in his work on 
the Science of Human Life : " The opinion had been 
imported from Europe, and generally received in our 
country, that a generous diet, embracing a large propor- 
tion of flesh meat, flesh soups, etc., with a little good 
wine, and a strict abstinence from most fruits and veg- 
etables, were the very best means to escape an attack 
of that terrible disease. Nearly four months before the 
cholera appeared in New York, I gave a public lecture 
on the subject in that city, in which I contended that an 
entire abstinence from flesh meat and flesh soups, and 
alcoholic and narcotic liquors and substances, and from 
every kind of purely stimulating substances ; and the ob- 
servance of a correct general regimen in regard to sleep- 
ing, bathing, clothing, exercise, the indulgence of the nat- 
ural passions, appetites, etc., etc., would constitute the 
surest means by which any one could rationally hope to 
be preserved from an attack of that disease. I repeated 
this lecture after the cholera had commenced its rav- 
ages in the city, and, notwithstanding the powerful op- 
position to the opinions which I advanced, a very con- 
siderable number of citizens stir -tly adhered to my ad- 



38 CONCLUSION. 

vice. And it is an important fact, that v.f all who fol- 
lowed my prescribed regimen uniformly and consist- 
ently, not one fell a victim to that fearful disease, and 
very few had the slightest symptoms of an attack." 

In conclusion, it is too much for people to believe 
that mankind can have any considerable control over 
health. Disease is not regarded as being subject to laws. 
The world, has long been taught that the most deadly 
diseases may come at any time upon the most healthy. 
But such a thing cannot be. Facts every where prove 
the contrary. When the cholera rages among us. as 
it doubtless will, in a greater or less degree, the coming 
summer, then let it be seen who are the most subject to 
the disease — with whom it is the most fatal. The clean- 
ly, temperate, honest, industrious persons — these are 
the ones who, of all others, are most certain of remain- 
ing free from an attack. As you value life, health, and 
happiness, avoid, in times of cholera, fear, panic, anger, 
immoderate grief, and all undue excitements of the 
mind. I cannot too strongly recommend you to maintain 
an equable serenity and cheerfulness of temper and feel- 
ings. Be industrious, and habitually regular and tem- 
perate in all your habits and actions. As one of the 
most powerful auxiliaries in governing and regulating 
the mental and moral manifestations, pay particular re- 
gard to your dietetic and other personal and physiologi- 
cal habits. Avoid spirits as poison, in every form. To- 
bacco, one of the vilest of things, is especially bad in 
causing indigestion, and thus predisposing the system to 
cholera. Tea and coffee, those articles so much in 
vogue in our favored country — every where used, even 
among the poorest of the poor — depress the vital ener 



WATER THE BEST DRINK. 39 

gies of the system by their stimulant and poisonous 
effects, thus rendering you more subject to fear, and 
more liable to prevailing diseases, of whatever kind. 
They make you dyspeptic, nervous, tremulous, irreso- 
lute, subject to sick headaches ; as many may prove, if 
they will but drink pure, soft, cold water only, and that 
plentifully, for three months. The homoeopathic theory 
very properly proscribes tea and coffee, because of their 
medicinal effects, although in practice the theory is not 
carried out. It was well said, by an ancient poet 
" Water is the best thing ;" and by another : 

" Nothing like simple element dilutes 
The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow.' 

And still another : 

" O, madness ! to think use of strongest wines 
And strongest drink our chief support of health, 
When God with these forbidden, made choice to rear 
His mighty champion, strong above compare, 
Whose drink was only from the limpid brook.'' 

So, too, Shakspeare : 

" Though I look old, yet I am btrong and lusty, 
For in my youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood ; 
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 
The means of weakness and debility ; 
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
Frosty but kindly." 

"The more simple life is supported," says Dr. Paris, 
" the better, and h* is happy who considers water the 
best drink." Ana Dr. F. Hoffman long ago said : 
"Pure water is the best drink for persons of all tem- 
peraments ; it promotes a free and equable circulation 
of the blood, on which the due performance of every 



40 BATHING RECOMMENDED. 

function depends. Water-drinkers are not only the 
most active and vigorous, but the most healthy and 
phoer-fuL" 

Make no great and sudden changes in diet, but as soon 
as may be, get upon the brown bread and cold water 
plan. Superfine bread, if eaten continuously, without 
any counteracting substance, would destroy life, because 
of its too great richness. Good brown bread, as of 
wheat, Indian, or rye, or even potatoes alone and witl> 
out salt ; any of these, with pure soft water to drink, is 
amply sufficient to sustain you in the firmest health. A 
very moderate use of milk may be indulged in, but flesh 
meat is better omitted wholly. And of bathing — daily 
cleansing the whole body with water, tepid, cool, or cold, 
according to the strength — too much cannot be said. A 
story relates : A French doctor went to Damascus to 
seek his fortune. When he saw the luxurious vegetation, 
he said, " This is the place for me, plenty of fever." And 
then on seeing the abundance of water, he said, " More 
fever ; no place like Damascus !" When he entered the 
town, he asked the people, "What is this building?" "A 
bath !" " And what is that building ?" " A bath !" " And 
that other building ?" " A bath !" " Curse on the baths ! 
they take the bread out of my mouth," said the doctor ; 
" I must seek fever practice elsewhere." So he turned his 
back, went out of the gate again, and hied himself else- 
where. It would be well if every city were, in respect 
to baths, like Damascus, and all the people bathers. 
There will be no cholera practice to be had among the 
temperate and the clean. 

Finally, I recommend to you the earnest study of all 
the laws of health. This is a great study ; one that re- 
quires much time and hard thought ; and once you un* 



TEMPERANCE IN ALL THINGS. 41 

derstand these laws, you have yet much to do in resist- 
ing temptations, and will be very apt often to come 
short of the true mark. Both as a means of prevention 
and cure in cholera, I cannot too strongly recommend 
to you " temperance in all things." Study it ; prac- 
tice it ; so that with God's blessing, you may live on to 
a ripe old age, without suffering, without pain, and your 
life cease in natural death, when, 

11 Like a clock, worn out with eating time, 
The wheels of weary life at last stand still !" 

The cholera is a most fearful epidemic. In the buoy- 
ancy and gladsomeness of health, we aie not apt to think 
of disease. It is a serious thing to be attacked by a mal- 
ady that destroys its victim, as it were, in ■* single hour. 
"Take heed to yourselves, lest you be overcharged 
with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and tfo % ares of life, 
and that day come upon you unaware?/' 



42 RECAPITULATION. 



LECTURE II. 

Recapitulation. — Manner of an attack of Cholera. — Symptc ftis of Cholera — First 
stage. — Second stage. — Stage of Collapse. — Length of time Cholera patients live. — 
Nature of Cholera — Medical Authority on the Treatment of Cholera. — Dr. Elliotson. — 
Dr. Watson.— Dr. Marshall Hall.— Dr. Billing.— Dr. Scouttetten.— Dr. J. V. C. 
Smith. — Dr. Wood. — Dr. Dunglinson. — Dr. Mackintosh. — Dr. Condie. — Dr. P. C. 
Tappen. — Philadelphia Board of Health. — Dr. Parkes. — Dr. Broussais. — London 
Morning Chronicle. — Drs. Bell and Condie on Saline Injection into the Veins and 
Arteriotomy. — Blood-letting. — Dr. Tappen's Remarks thereon. — Homeopathic 
Treatment. — Closing Remarks. 

In the preceding lecture I spoke chiefly of the causes 
and prevention of cholera. In the present I propose 
to describe the disease more fully, and to speak of the 
various modes that have been adopted by the so-called 
orthodox school of medicine in the treatment of this 
most formidable of all modern epidemics. 

I remarked that the name of cholera is incorrect, 
inasmuch as it signifies a discharging of bile. It is 
characteristic of the disease, when fully developed, that 
there is no discharge of bile whatever. This is one of 
the most peculiar features of the disease. 

I laid down as an axiom, that every thing which tends 
in any way to depress the general health, predisposes the 
system to an attack. Dr. Elliotson, of London, very 
properly remarks : " The disease has great difficulty in 
attacking those who are in good health, and well off." 
I remarked, also, that it is- the filthy, miserable people, 
and above all, the intemperate, and those that lead a 
life of prostitution, who are of all persons most subject 
to the disease, and the most certain of being cut off. 

Whether cholera be a contagious disease or not, we 
know it visits large cities principally ; that it often 



MANNER OF AN ATTACK OF CHOLERA. 43 

passes directly, at a single stride, from one large city 
to another, as from London to Paris, leaving all inter- 
mediate places untouched. But this is not always the 
case ; it sometimes comes upon small country places, 
where the condition and habits of the people are bad. 

I remarked also, that one thing should be particularly 
remembered in reference to the coming on of cholera. 
There will be a great variety of specifics put forth as 
sure preventives and cures ; and such things will be 
heralded forth, in the way of advertising, in many of 
our papers ; and these will be bought and used by many, 
else they would not be thus advertised. Now all such 
articles, if they have any potency in them, will always 
be more or less injurious, in proportion to their charac- 
ter, and to the individual's health. The strictest ab- 
sence from all medicinal substances, spirits, tea, cof- 
fee and spices, tobacco — in short, from all stimulants in 
cholera, is the only safe rule. "Avoid physic and phy- 
sicians if you value health," was never more applicable 
than here. 

MANNER OF AN ATTACK OF CHOLERA. 

If it is impossible to arrive at the true nature of chole- 
ra, we may know and treat it by its effects. Mark well 
one thing: in its beginning it is in general a mild dis- 
ease. People are not struck down all of a sudden, as 
we have been often told, and without any premonitions 
of an attack.* There must be pre-existing disease. If a 

* The Rev. H. G. O. D wight, a missionary of the American Board, 
writing to the New York Observer, Aug. 27, 1848, says: " The Asiatic 
cholera, which, when fairly seated, is one of the most unmanageable of all 
diseases — despising all human art and skill, and mocking all the assidui. 
ties of friendship — in almost all cases, begins with a mud diarrhea- 



44 SYMPTOMS OF CHOLERA. 

person is in all respects well, and practices uniformly 
good and regular habits, no attack of cholera can come 
upon him. There are people, however, who are thought 
by themselves and the many to be perfectly well, who 
are yet among the subjects most liable to cholera. Cor- 
pulent men, with red faces, high livers, the very per- 
sonification of health, as people say, are very liable to 
diseases of the bowels, and consequently to cholera. 
The truth is, such persons are never well, and carry 
constantly within them the seeds of disease. Facts 
abundantly prove that no really healthy person can be 
attacked with cholera. 

There is, then, preceding the real attack of cholera, a 
diseased condition of the stomach and bowels — a state 
of things which it is possible, in almost every con- 
ceivable case, to manage safely, and thus prevent the 
final invasion of the terrific disease. 

SYMPTOMS OF CHOLERA FIRST STAGE. 

The symptoms of cholera, as authors give them, are 
many and various. As in all other severe diseases, 

which in that stage is most readily cured. True, where the cholera is 
raging, we are continually hearing of persons who arose well in the 
morning, and are in their graves before night; and it is not to be doubt- 
ed, that there are some cases in which the very first attack of the disease 
is the collapse, from which recovery is rare. But I can say with truth 
that in every instance of these sudden deaths of cholera, in which I 
have been able to investigate the circumstances, I have found that the in* 
dividual had been laboring under diarrhea for some days previous. 
Generally, it is so slight as not to be much noticed ; it is attended with no 
pains, and no sickness of stomach, perhaps, and gives the person no par- 
ticular inconvenience. But it is this very diarrhea which is insidiously 
preparing the system for the most dreadful onset of the disease." These 
remarks are very judicious, although not made by a medical man. 



SYMPTOMS OF CRCLERA. 45 

there will be much variation in the manner of the attack. 
The disease has been by some divided into three stages. 
After the mild diarrhea, which has been generally for 
some days present, there occur griping pains in th6 
stomach and bowels, nausea, tenesmus (or a bearing 
down and desire to evacuate the bowels, and without 
any effect) ; at other times there are watery discharges 
from the bowels ; sometimes there is a thin, slimy dis- 
charge, streaked with blood. But generally the dis- 
charges are not attended with pain, as in dysentery, but 
take place with ease, almost without the consciousness 
of the patient. It is said that " in the debilitated, and 
especially in the intemperate, the evacuations from the 
bowels are, from the first, often extremely copious, 
whey-like, and produce a sense of extreme exhaustion, 
a faintness, or even fainting ; and that in such cases, in 
a very few hours, the most terrible cramps, vomiting, 
and collapse come on." Any improper exposure, and 
especially any imprudence in eating, drinking, or the 
taking of medicine, will in such cases accelerate the 
coming on of the second and third stages. In the first 
stage the appetite is diminished or entirely gone, and 
the desire for cold water is proportionably increased. 
There are also shooting pains in the extremities, par- 
ticularly the calves of the legs. Patients describe their 
symptoms as of all the blood rushing to the interior of 
the abdomen ; sometimes feeling as if electric shocks 
were passing through the bowels, accompanied with 
very great and unendurable heat. 

SECOND STAGE. 

In what may be termed the second stage, there is al- 
most constant \ omiting and purging of what has been 



46 STAGE UF COLLAP3 3. 

denominated " rice-water fluid." This turbid, whitish li- 
quid, "pours again and again from the bowels in streams 
and is spouted from the mouth as if from a pump." The 
vomiting itself is generally easy, and comparatively 
without effort, and appearing to give momentary relief. 
Again, there are violent pains of the stomach and bow T - 
els, and of the head and back, with violent spasms of 
the muscles, and more especially of the extremities. 

The pain, we are told by those who have seen much 
of the disease, often causes the most courageous to make 
noisy outcries, and to roll themselves about as if fran- 
tic. The agony about the heart often experienced in 
cholera, is believed to be as great as that of any which 
mankind are ever brought to endure. In consequence 
of this agony, there comes on necessarily such extreme 
weakness, that the patient cannot move ; the trunk of 
the body in particular becomes powerless. 

The pulse may be full, or small and contracted. The 
skin is bathed in a clammy perspiration, and has a pecu- 
liar feel, like dough. Some have compared the skin in 
this state to a wet hide. The countenance is expres- 
sive of great anxiety and distress, although the mental 
faculties remain unimpaired. Already in this stage the 
secretion of the kidneys often entirely ceases ; the thirst 
is inordinate — so great, in some instances, that the patient 
gets out of bed, goes to the pump, or wherever he may 
obtain water, and sometimes even drinks the fluid 
which he has before vomited. In no disease is the 
thirst so great as in cholera. 

STAGE OF COLLAPSE. 

Next comes the stage of collapse, as it is called. A 
remarkable change takes place in f he appearance of the 



COLLAPSE IN CHOLERA. 47 

patient. The surface becomes cold, and in many in- 
stances blue ; the lips are purple, the tongue cold, and of 
the color of lead. The wrist becomes pulseless. The 
breath is also cold ; the eyes are sunk deep in their sock- 
ets, and the whole appearance has changed and become 
ghastly as that of a corpse. In many instances so great 
a change takes place in a few hours, that near friends can- 
not recogni'ze the sufferer. The peculiar appearance of 
the physiognomy in confirmed cholera, is so expressive 
of extreme anguish, that the name " triangular face" has 
been used to designate it. " It bears a striking resem- 
blance to the appearance of age ; and seems to arise from 
the paleness, wasting, and shrinking of the features, and 
the depressed and disturbed state of the mind, conveying 
into the countenance a strong expression of care, anxi- 
ety, and alarm." — Orton, as quoted by Dr. Jas. Johnson. 
There is cold, profuse perspiration, which seems to 
exude in large drops from every pore ; and, notwith- 
standing this coldness, the patient complains of the 
burning heat at the stomach, and craves more than ever 
cold water, and the cool fresh air. The watery dis- 
charges from the bowels continue ; " the hands and fin- 
gers are shriveled, white, corrugated, and sodden, like 
those of a washerwoman after a long day's work. The 
voice is very peculiar, husky, and faint. At last the 
patient is free from pain and vomiting, and remains ap- 
parently tranquil ; not willing to make the least exer- 
tion, and as if quietly awaiting the approach of death." 
Such are the symptoms constituting what is termed a 
state of collapse. The symptoms will, of course, vary 
greatly in different cases ; sometimes coming on very 
suddenly, almost without any warning ; at other times 
lingering for days. 



48 BROUSSAIS' DESCRIPTION. 

If reaction or return of warmth and circulation ap- 
pear in collapse, there is more hope for the patient ; and 
yet there is danger from consecutive fever and kindred 
local affections ; especially where inordinate dosing has 
been practiced, this holds true. It has been remarked 
that when inebriates passed into a state of reaction fol- 
lowing collapse, they were very apt to be attacked by 
delirium tremens, and were almost certain to die. I be- 
lieve that about one half of all cholera patients in regu- 
lar practice have perished with the disease.* 

* Broussais thus describes the " exterior" symptoms of cholera: 
" The muscles are strongly marked under the skin; the eyes are hol- 
low, dry, and sunken ; after some hours, the consistence of the eyeball 
seems to be dissolved ; and one would say the eyes were turned inward 
by means of a thread. The aspect of the patient is hideous ; the face 
very soon loses its fullness, and is contracted in a manner peculiar to these 
affections : but what causes the greatest astonishment, is the livid hue 
which spreads itself over the countenance as the disease advances. The 
extremities are cold ; the tongue is usually pale, chill, broad, and flat ; 
the breath cold, and the pulse feeble ; the words are rather breathed than 
pronounced. The patient remains motionless, on the back ; if you force 
them to lay upon the side, tiey cannot continue so long, but beg to be 
laid on their back, so that the breast may be raised. While the body 
thus remains still, they move the feet and hands, uncover the breast, com- 
plain of a fire within, and tear off the poultices and other warm applica- 
tions placed on the stomach ; they turn from one side to the other, but 
are not able to ris« up. Tbe color becomes darker and darker, and is 
soon livid. It varies, however, according to the natural complexion of 
the patient. Dark complexions become black or bluish ; but those which 
are more transparent turn yellow, taking the color of bad gilding. This 
is followed by cessation c f the pulse, which I shall call asphyxy. The 
pulse grows weak rapidly, and sometimes disappears in three hours, or 
even less. As soon as the pulse begins to grow feeble, the patient 
falls into the heaviness I have referred to : there are cases, however, in 
which he still preserves his strength when the pulse is extinct, and is 
even able to raise himself up, and go from one place to another ; but this 
Btrength is soon lost, and the unhappy person falls powerless. After the 
cessation of the pulse, the black hue manifests itself with various rapidity, 
sometimes at the end of two or three hours, sometimes even in less; thin 
depends upon the promptitude with which circulation >3ases." 



VATURE <DT CH07 3RA. 49 

LENGTH OF TIME CHOLERA PATIENTS LIVE. 

The length of time cholera patients survive must of 
course vary very much ; some die in an hour or two 
others linger for days. I was informed at Quarantine, 
Staten Island, by the very gentlemanly assistant physi- 
cians of Dr. Whiting, Health Officer of the city of New 
York, that the average time of the cases there for about 
two weeks, had been ten hours ; that some died within 
two hours, and that few lived to thirty-six hours. 

NATURE OF CHOLERA. 

The cholera is emphatically a disease of the mucous 
or lining membrane of the stomach and bowels. This 
internal skin, as it may be called, is much larger in ex- 
tent than would at first be supposed. Beginning at the 
mouth and throat, descending, we have the oesophagus, 
stomach, duodenum or second stomach, the jejunum, il- 
leum, the last three forming the small intestines; and the 
coecum, colon, and rectum, comprising the large intes- 
tine. This whole tract, upward of thirty feet in length, 
is lined with the mucous membrane, which is more than 
two thousand square inches, or about thirteen square 
feet in extent. It is upon and through this great surface 
that the food is formed into chyme, afterward chyle, 
which last passes into the circulation and becomes 
blood. Effete and worn-out matters of the system are 
also thrown off in large quantities through the lower 
part of this surface. This extensive membrane is also 
supplied in all its parts, with myriads of nervous fila- 
ments, and through the ganglionic nervous system is 
brought into a veiy intimate connection with every part 



50 NATURE OF CHOLERA. 

of the organism. Upon and through this membrane, the 
cholera manifests itself There is congestion (stagna- 
tion of blood) in all of the abdominal organs, but if we are 
to regard the cholera a disease of any one particular 
part, it is the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal. 
There are various theories among pathologists as to 
the true nature of cholera. Thus there is the nervous 
theory, so called — a theory implying that the nervous 
system, or the nervous fluid — of which so much is said 
and so little known — is wholly at fault. Another theory 
is that of congestion ; and still another* that of acute 
inflammation. Whichever of these theories a practi- 
tioner may adopt, or whether he adopt no theory at all, 
he must treat the disease according to the symptoms as 
he finds them. All the most ingenious theorizing in the 
world will avail him nothing, when he comes to under- 
take the serious matter of treating the sick. I repeat, 
every judicious practitioner will treat cholera according 

TO THE SYMPTOMS AS HE FINDS THEM AT THE TIME. More- 
over, whether he be a theorizer or not, he must be, to a. 
considerable extent, an experimenter, so difficult are 
many things in the medical art. 

In another place, when I come to speak of the water- 
treatment, I will enter into a practical analysis of the 
symptoms of cholera. 

I pass now to a consideration of the various modes 
of treatment that have been adopted by the orthodox 
school. In doing this, I will make copious extracts from 
the best authors, without bitterress or censoriousness, 
and with a sincere love of truth, and a desire to show 
foith things as they actually exist, I would have things 
appear only in their true light. I respect the honest 



MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 51 

opinions of men who, were they attacked with cholera, 
would cause themselves to be treated in the same modes, 
terrible though they might be, by which they also treat 
others. I respect those men who do as they would be 
done by in this matter ; and such is true of a majority 
of that profession of men who, more than all others, are 
under the painful necessity of coming in contact with 
suffering, disease, and death. 

MEDICAL AUTHORITIES ON THE TREATMENT OP CHOLERA. 

Dr. Elliotson, of London, in M Principles and Prac- 
tice of Medicine," savs : " We are not in the least more 
informed as to the proper reme ies, than we were when 
the first case of cholera occurred ; we have not been 
instructed, in the least, by those who have had the dis- 
ease to treat. Some say that they have cured the dis- 
ease by bleeding ; others by calomel ; others by opium ; 
and others, again, say that opium does harm. No 
doubt many poor creatures have died uncomfortably, 
who would have died tranquilly if nothing had been 
done to them. Some were placed in hot water, or in 
hot air, and had opium and calomel, and other stimulants; 
which, altogether, were more than their systems would 
bear, and more than would have been borne if they had 
been so treated even in perfect health." And again : " I 
am sorry to say that, of the cases I had to treat, the pa- 
tients nearly all died. I tried two or three sorts of treat- 
ment. Some had opium and calomel, in large and full 
doses ; but they died. Hot air was applied externally: 
and I got two to breathe hot air. I had a tube passed 
through boiling water, so that they might inhale hot air. 
It was found vain to attempt to warm people by hot air 
3 



52 MEDICAL AUTHORITIES 

applied externally. They t were neai.y as col 1 as be- 
fore ; we could not raise thei" temperature; and there- 
fore I thought of making them breathe hot air ; but both 
patients died about the period that death usually takes 
place. It was said that saline treatment was likely to 
be of use ; and I accordingly tried it with some patients. 
At first I exhibited half a drachm of sesquicarbonat.e of 
soda, every hour ; and thinking that might not be quite 
enough, I exhibited a drachm ; in one patient, at St 
Thomas's Hospital, I ordered an inaction containing an 
ounce of the same remedy ; but the greater part of i* 
came away, and the patient died. Hot air was used ir 
this case as well as the others." 

Dr. Watson, of London, in his lectures on the Pria 
ciples and Practice of Physic, says: "Some patients (ii* 
cholera) after the vomiting, and purging, and cramps 
had departed, died comatose (in stupor) ; over-drugged 
sometimes, it is to be feared, by opium. The rude dis 
cipline to which they were subjected, might account for 
some of the cases of fever; and the process of arti- 
ficially replenishing the veins was certainly attended 
with much danger. The injection of air with the 
water — inflammation of the vein from the violence 
done to it — an over-repletion and distension of the ves- 
sels by the liquid — might, any one of them, and some- 
times, I suppose, did, occasion the death of the patient. 
Never, certainly, was the artillery of medicine more 
vigorously plied — never were her troops, regular and 
volunteer, more meritoriously active. To many pa- 
tients, no doubt, this busy interference made all the 
difference between life and death. But if the balance 
could be fairly struck, and the exact truth ascertained, 
1 quesii n whether we should fine that the aggregate 



MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 53 

mortality from cholera in this country was any way 
disturbed by our craft. Excepting always the cases in 
which preliminary diarrhea was checked, just as many, 
though not perhaps the very same individuals, would 
probably have survived had no medication whatever 
been practiced." 

And elsewhere Dr. Watson says : " Certain prac- 
titioners maintained that the disease was to be remedied 
by introducing into the system a large quantity of neu- 
tral salts, which were to liquefy and redden the blood, 
and to restore the functions of the circulation. But of 
this practice it was said, in sorry but true jest, that how- 
ever it might be with pigs or herrings, salting a patient 
in oholera was not always the same thing as curing 
him. # # * Some physicians put their trust in 
brandy, some in opium, some in cajeput oil, which rose, 
I know not to what price, in the market ; some again 
to calomel alone." 

Dr. Marshall Hall, of London, in a work on the 
Practice of Medicine, modestly says : " I do not venture 
to give an opinion upon the treatment of the Indian 
cholera." He, however, inclined to recommend the 
mercurial plan. And Drs. Bigelow and Holmes, of 
Boston, in adding notes to the work of Dr. Marshall 
Hall, remark, that " this disease has totally baffled the 
curative efforts of the medical profession in Europe 
and America, as the records of its mortality abundantly 
show;" that "no one can think otherwise who has seen 
much of the disease, unless in its most favorable and 
imperfect form." 

Dr. Billing, of London, in Principles of Medicine, 
savs : "The slight or middling cases of cholera have a 
tendency, like ague, to rem?, of themselves ; and hence. 



54 MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 

whatever treatment had been adopted, the practitioner 
used to think he had cured them; and thus I have been 
repeatedly told by practitioners that they had found the 
true remedy for cholera. But the next time I met them 
there was a long face upon mentioning the specific." 

And again he says : " If calomel be used in the quan- 
tity necessary to produce a sedative effect (the indica- 
tion of treatment in the disease), it afterward produces 
havoc on the mouth." 

Dr. Scouttetten, of Strasbourg, as translated by 
Dr. Doane, of New York, says: "Fear and credulity 
have eagerly received exaggerated or deceitful prom- 
ises, which the experience of a day or a deceitful imagi- 
nation have proffered with assurance. Thus, from the 
Indian empirics, who oppose the disease by burning 
with a red-hot iron that part of the heel where the skin 
is thickest, to the physician who advances that the best 
mode of preserving one from the cholera is to deny it 
existence, the employment of bismuth, calomel, large 
cataplasms of meal reaching from the head to the feet 
of the patient, camphor, corrosive sublimate, and twenty 
other more or less dangerous and ridiculous remedies 
have been advised." 

Again this author says: "The incendiary treatment 
pursued by the English and most Indians, has multiplied 
the victims beyond all belief. They employ calomel, 
corrosive sublimate, cinnabar, quicksilver, ginger, can- 
tharides, ether, and brandy in frightful doses." 

In a late number of the Boston Medical and Surgical 
Journal, Aug. 30, 1848, edited by Dr. J. V. C. Smith, it 
is said in a leading editorial, that "the proper treatment 
of cholera is involved in the same uncertainty (as the 
generating caases of the disease although every coun- 



MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 55 

try where cholera has appeared, or its appearance is 
anticipated, abounds in medical directions for managing 
the disease with as much certainty as steam power is 
controlled by an experienced engineer." 

Dr. Wood, of Philadelphia, in his Practice of Med- 
icine says : ** The plans of treatment which have been 
employed in epidemic cholera, are almost as numerous 
as the combinations of which remedies are susceptible ; 
and, judging from the reports upon a great scale, there 
seems to have been but little difference in the results." 

And again : " When a discriminating view is taken of 
the whole ground, and the published results of individu- 
al practitioners or individual institutions, in connection 
with the treatment employed, are compared, we find in- 
superable difficulties in coming to a just conclusion as to 
the most effective plan ; great success being often claim- 
ed for the most different, and even opposite remedies, 
by their respective advocates." 

Dr. Dunglison, of the same city, in Principles and 
Practice of Medicine, says : " Like all epidemics and 
contagious diseases, epidemic cholera affords a difficult 
problem for solution ; and we are perhaps justified in 
adopting the following summary of a distinguished pa- 
thologist, M. Andral : Anatomical characters, insuffi- 
cient; Causes, mysterious; Nature, hypothetical; 
Symptoms, characteristic ; Diagnosis, easy ; Treat- 
ment, doubtful." 

Dr. Mackintosh says, that "no better evidence can 
be offered of the ignorance of the profession generally, 
as to the nature and seat of any disease, than the num- 
ber and variety of remedies that have been confidently 
recommended for its cure," and that this was never bet- 
ter exemplified than in the cholera. Without pretending 



56 MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 

to give ill the remedies that were recommended for this 
disease, he cites the following catalogue, made out at 
the time it prevailed in the city of Edinburgh : 

" Vene-section (bleeding) ; cupping; dry-cupping. — Ar- 
tenotomy (blood-letting from the arteries). — Emetics of 
mustard, ipecacuanha, antimony, and sulphate of copper. 
— Calomel ; colocynth, singly and combined ; castor oil ; 
croton oil ; julap ; opium ; calomel and opium ; fluid 
mercury ; mercurial frictions ; opium combined with 
antimony ; opiate confection ; colchicum ; cajeput oil ; 
peppermint oil ; capsicum; charcoal; camphor various- 
ly combined; ether; mint tea; nitric spirits of ether; 
magnesia ; milk ; milk and magnesia combined ; lime- 
water • alkalies ; aromatic spirits of ammonia ; Dover's 
powder ; oxide of bismuth. — Various balsams. — Acetate 
of lead ; nitrous acid ; soda water ; cold water ad libi- 
tum ; water prohibited ; effervescing draughts ; strych- 
nia ; various rubefacients in the shape of frictions, 
sinapisms, embrocations. — Various contra-irritan-ts — as 
blisters, antimonial ointment ; moxas ; actual cautery ; 
bastinadoing the feet ! Cutting the throat ! Suffocating 
under a feather bed ! Injections of oxygen gas into the 
bowels ! The application of heat in the shape of w T arm 
bath, fomentations ; dry heat ; the application of cold. — 
Galvanism. — Injections of beef tea, starch, and opium, 
chamomile tea, hot water, cold water, strong solution 
of fusible potash, tobacco, port wine, alcohol, sulphate 
of copper, acetate of lead, etc. Stephens' drug; saline 
injections into the veins." 

Elsewhere Dr. Mackintosh says : " In the Drummond 
street (Edinburgh) Hospital, we faHy tried all the rem- 
edies recommended, but observed no advantage from 
a large majority of them." 



MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 57 

Rubefacients and contra-irritants, that were so much 
used, according to the old and erroneous notion of draw- 
ing the blood to the surface so as to relieve internal con- 
gestions, Dr. Mackintosh deprecated. He never ob- 
served beneficial results in any ease from these reme- 
dies, although the hot iron had been drawn all along the 
spine on each side, from the occiput to the sacrum. 

And again this author remarks : " I have known many 
individuals destroyed when in this critical state (col- 
lapse), apparently by taking a laxative — even a small 
quantity of calcined magnesia — or an emetic." And 
again: " Heat was found greatly to increase the dis- 
comfort and jactitation (jerking of the limbs) in chol- 
era." 

After collapse, in cholera, there must be reaction — a 
return of warmth and general circulation — or there 
could be no recovery. This sometimes takes place. In 
precise keeping with the old Boerhaavean notion of 
stimulating in fevers, the experiment was often tried. 
Dr. Condie, of the Southwark Cholera Hospital, Phila- 
delphia, remarked, " he had seen stimulants freely ad- 
ministered in the stage of collapse, but that, instead of 
a gentle heat of the skin, a gradual increase in the fre- 
quency and volume of the pulse, and a diminution of 
the burning sensation and uneasiness of the stomach 
being produced, all of a sudden there has been develop- 
ed an intense burning heat of the surface, a dusky red- 
ness of the face, increased gastric (stomach) distress, 
great restlessness, which, after lasting a short time, have 
been succeeded by deep coma (stupor), low muttering 
delirium, dark colored flaky discharges from the stom- 
ach, subsultus tendinum, sometimes convulsions, and 
death." And he also remarks that, " internally, the only 



58 MEDICAL AUTHORITIES, 

remedy he had found not absolutely injurious in this 
stage, was powdered ice, or ice-water." 

" The hot air bath," says Dr. P. C. Tappen, physician 
to the Park Hospital of New York, in 1832, "has not 
answered the expectations which were formed of it. 
It will very readily raise the temperature of the surface, 
but seldom influences the pulse, and, in the great pro- 
portion of cases in which it has been applied, the patient 
has died in a sort of colliquative sweat." 

This same author, in speaking of the tobacco injection, 
says: " A means which has been known not unfrequently 
to cause death (see Christison and other works on Poi- 
sons), has been used in five or six cases, but the patients 
have all died in a short time after its administration. 
In one or two cases where spasms existed it seemed to 
produce some temporary alleviation ; als<_ in one case 
where the patient was extremely restless, tossing to and 
fro, and not complaining of any particular pain, except 
at the precordia (region of the heart), it seemed to pro- 
duce at first some benefit; the patient was quieted, and 
sweated profusely, the extremities became somewhat 
warm, and the patient said he felt relieved. But extreme 
prostration soon followed, and he died in less than an 
hour* In three cases where it was used, it was pre- 
ceded by the enema of brandy, but with the same un- 
favorable results." And later the same year, in mak- 
ing an official report, that, "in tie use of tobacco, he 
was disappointed in every case." 

Dr. Tappen says of mercurial friction in the Park 
Hospital, "it has been used in fourteen cases; many 
had at least a pound rubbed in, and the friction has been 
kept up faithfully for hours ; all these have died except 
one." And this ont was far from being well, we may 



MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 59 

judge, for the report says, at the time it was made he 
might be considered in a state of convalescence. 

The Philadelphia Board of Health, in a late re- 
port, admits that " no plan of treatment has been dis- 
% overed by which the rate of mortality in confirmed 
cases of cholera can be lessened." 

A late writer on cholera, Dr. Parkes, of London, 
makes the following admissions: "No medicine has yet 
been found which can counteract the changes in the 
fibrine, and nullify the first effect of fhe choleraic virus 
in the blood. The antidote to this tremendous poison 
has not yet been discovered, and the resources of mod- 
ern European science have indeed, it appears to me, in 
many cases proved hurtful. The attempt to cut short 
the disease, and to rouse the system from a state erro- 
neously compared to debility and to exhaustion, has 
certainly accelerated the progress of cholera. " And 
again this author: "The list of remedies which have 
been used in cholera with this indication (that of coun- 
teracting the deeper and more important changes in the 
blood), comprises all the stronger medicines known to 
physicians at the present day, and, as it appears to me, 
no one medicine has been found more uniformly effica- 
cious than another. The occasional mildness of an 
epidemic, or the use of a medicine toward the close, 
when the cases are less severe, have indeed conferred 
a temporary repute on certain remedies ; but the next 
epidemic has invariably shown the boasted specific to 
be in reality as useless as any other, in the long array 
of medicines which have had an equally undeserved 
and equally transient popularity." And still again this 
author remarks, concerning remedies taken by the 
mouth : " I believe my assertion, that no one remedy is 
3* 



6) MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 

more useful than anothei, in fulfilling the present indi- 
cation (the one before alluded to), will be agreed to by 
every one. I gave, in a variety of ways, and in all 
stages, calomel, hemp, opium, camphor, quinine, creasote, 
tartar emetic, with and without opium, salines of all 
kinds, ether, hyosciamus, and, in fact, every medicine 
which could be obtained. Large doses of calomel, such 
as fifteen to twenty grains, were given in many cases 
certainly without benefit, perhaps even with positive in- 
iury. I observed in several cases that when calomel 
was given in large doses, or in small doses frequently 
repeated, at the time when absorption was possible, the 
algide (painful) symptoms seemed to be increased." 

The learned Broussais says of the stimulating treat- 
ment, viz. : that by administering spirituous and alco- 
holic drinks, such as brandy, rum, gin, wine, not only 
pure, but impregnated and saturated with aromatics and 
irritating substances, such as cinnamon, nutmegs, cloves, 
musk, pepper, etc., "the mortality is frightful;" that 
" this treatment, compared with the physiological, is in- 
finitely more dangerous, since it is attended with a much 
greater number of deaths ;" and that " those who are 
cured by the stimulating mode still preserve a morbid 
state of the digestive canal, and even of the whole sys- 
tem, which continues through the rest of their life ;" 
that " in those halls where the patients have been revived 
by means of stimulants, such as punch and brandy, they 
perish in great numbers, after having been carried into 
another hall as cured of cholera. They are reported 
in the bulletin as cured of cholera, and placed in a sep- 
arate room as affected with typhoid fever, and nothing 
further is said about them ; the attention of the physi- 



MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 61 

cians is given to the new subjects that arrive, and the 
first are forgotten." 

How could the stimulating plan have any other effect 
than to injure the system? For by this method one source 
of disease, viz., the stimulant, is superadded to the al- 
ready existing disease. 

An eloquent writer in the London Morning Chronicle 
(not a medical man, I suppose), speaking of the ravages 
of cholera in Paris, says : " Private subscriptions poured 
in on all sides ; every imaginable precaution was taken 
by the authorities ; the medical men made superhuman 
efforts , but no common method of treatment having 
been agreed upon, the most opposite systems were pur- 
sued, even in the same hospital or the same ward ! The 
attendants had to execute directly opposite orders for 
cases perfectly identical ; the patient who was dosed 
with punch saw ice given to the man in the next bed, 
and thinking himself used only as a subject for experi- 
ments, he died with rage in his heart !" 

Concerning the practice of saline injections into the 
veins, Drs. Bell and Condie of Philadelphia, in their 
work on Epidemic Cholera, remark as follows : " Before 
resorting to so daring and hazardous a practice, we 
ought to ask ourselves whether, first, in the particular 
state of the patient at the time, there is no other reme- 
dial means which presents any fair chance of reviving 
him? And secondly, if ihis practice do not, though af- 
fording temporary relief, introduce fresh causes of subse- 
quent disease, and more certainly seal the patient's final 
doom ? The answer to the first question cannot be sat- 
isfactorily made, although we may be allowed to say 
that recoveries have been brought about by means ap- 
parency simple, such as assiduous frictions and the 



62 MIDICAL AUlifORITlES. 

bath, of persons who were supposed to be nearly mori- 
bund (a state like death), and whose only chance of life 
would seem by friends of the practice, to depend on in- 
jections into the veins. In reply to the second objec- 
tion, we can say that death has followed in all of the 
few 1 ases in which the practice has been tried in Phila- 
delphia, and out of upward of thirty in New York sub- 
jected to it, only two have survived. In Edinburgh, 
where the injecting system for cholera seems first to 
have been tried, the cures are represented as five, and 
the deaths ten, of the patients on whom it was perform- 
ed." And further on, these authors remark, " that suffi- 
cient time does not seem to have elapsed between the 
injections into the veins, and the publications of cures 
to justify our placing implicit confidence in the claims 
thus set forth. We had in the following day, and in one 
case for. several days, similar annunciations of cure in 
this city, but the vivas for success were soon changed 
into regret for the death of the patient, if not for some- 
thing else." 

Drs. Bell and Condie add further, in a note, that " Dr. 
Anderson, of Rochester, England, details five cases 
treated by saline injections into the veins, of which he 
alleges three were successful. But what is the proof? 
He gives an account of two of the patients who died, 
one after 305 ounces, the second after about 190 ounces 
had been injected. Of the others h^ says, * the additional 
cases were selected yesterday, ai:d this plan of treat- 
ment adopted, and I am happy to add with the most de- 
cided benefit ; they are all at this moment convalescent.' " 
" This" say Drs. Beli and Condie, "is trifling too much 
with his professional brethren ; convalescent the day 
after the operation ! How were they the following day, 



ARTERIOTOMY. 63 

dead or in health ? The former is a more probable re- 
salt than the latter. In the two admitted fatal cases, 
although reaction, as far as restored pulse and natural 
hue of countenance, was produced, an immense serous 
discharge continued to run from the bowels all the 
time." 

And again these authors say, "that when reaction is 
fairly established, and the secretions restored by other 
modes of practice, does the patient slip off into death as 
after saline injections into the veins? We believe not, 
unless he has been grossly negligent of all advice." 

ARTERIOTOMY. 

In the more advanced stages of cholera, when the 
action of the heart and arteries almost wholly ceases ; 
when no blood can be made to flow from the veins ; 
when the skin is cold, and deluged with a cold, clammy 
sweat ; when there is great difficulty of breathing and 
oppression of the chest ; when there are the most severe 
pains and uneasiness in the region of the stomach, at- 
tended with excessive pain and confusion of the head, 
and intolerance of light and sound, arteriotomy, or 
blood-letting from the arteries, has been practiced. We 
cannot but admire the indomitable courage and perse- 
vering will of those practitioners who resorted over and 
over again to arteriotomy, and who, when occasion de- 
manded, were ever most ready to be themselves thus 
practiced upon. But witness the horrors of the prac- 
tice ! The patient, pale, ghastly, appearing like a living 
corpse, with the peculiar cadaverous smell of cholera 
coming from the body, the wrist pulseless, and the vital 
functions sunk to the lowest ebb, witness then the hor- 



64 ARTERIOTOMY. 

rors of cutting open the arteries, even the largo carotids 
of the neck ! Well might Dr. Mackintosh say of this 
practice, with an exclamation point " Cutting the 
throat!" And what was the result? Why, in many 
instances no blood at all wou.d flow from the gaping 
wound. Hear Drs. Bell and Condie on the subject ol 
arteriotomy : " Besides the local bleeding by means of 
leeches or cupping, and those practiced at the arm 
and jugular vein with the lancet, recourse was had to 
arteriotomy in a number of subjects, w T ho, it must be 
confessed, say the Archives Generates de Medicine, ap- 
peared to derive no benefit from it. The temporal ar- 
tery was opened by Magendie, Recamier, Gendrin, and 
several others ; and by this means some spoonfulls of 
rose-colored blood, with impaired fluidity, trickled away 
as from a venous tube. In two subjects, it was deter- 
mined to open the radial artery a little above the articu- 
lation of the thumb, where it is superficial and may be 
easii v tied. It was then observed that this vascular 
trunk contained a feeble thread of blood, the motion of 
which was so much retarded, that the jet scarcely rose 
beyond the lips of the wound; the ventricular impulse 
was almost extinct, and to obviate hemorrhage, a sim- 
ple compress and ordinary bandage was sufficient. The 
thin, plastic blood scarcely reddened the two or three 
turns of the roller which covered the wound of the ar- 
tery : when reaction began to appear, there was no he- 
morrhage, properly so named, and ligature of the vessel 
was dispensed with as superfluous." 

" The surgeons of Berlin," say these authors, " went 
a step further — a false step it may well be called. The 
brachial, and even the crura . artery was opened ; and 
it will scarcely be credited, that a distinguished sur 



3LEEDING. 65 

geon, whose name is concealed, ventured to open the 
carotid artery, because the other arterial trunks had 
furnished no blood. It is related that the latter arteries 
being equally deficient, the operator introduced a stylet 
into the aorta and left ventricle, to rouse it to new con- 
tractions. Death took place on these manoeuvres, al- 
though the feet was denied by one of the admirers of 
this chirurgical hardihood ; and there was not time to 
see the patient sink under hemorrhage." 

We are told that blood-letting in the first stages of 
cholera, " when the pulse is free, and the temperature 
not reduced," is a serviceable remedy. Indeed, in med- 
ical parlance, such a practice " is often sufficient to cut 
short the disease." It would be a wiser mode, as well 
as more modest, to speak more guardedly in a matter 
of such importance. The wise old maxim, " that truth 
is a difficult thing to arrive at," does not any where 
hold more true than in the healing art. A patient in 
cholera, with " the pulse full, and the temperature na 
reduced," if that may be called cholera, is not in a very 
dangerous state, to say the least. But the fashion in 
medicine is, as it ever has been, " Do thus and so ; if 
the patient gets well, the remedy has cured him ; if he 
does not, he dies in spite of the remedy." This mode 
of reasoning, if reasoning it may be called, will do for 
some things — money-making, for example — but not for 
philosophy in the healing art. 

Dr. Tappen, of New York, remarked of bleeding 
(see Cholera Hospital Reports), "I have never seen a 
case where I thought bleeding necessary in the early 
stages of the disease, although I can conceive that such 
cases have existed ; but many cases have come under 
my observation in which bleeding ha* had a decidedly 



66 BLEEDING. 

injurious effect. Many patients have Deen sent to the 
hospital, who, just previous to the attack, were excited 
by debauch and large quantities of ardent spirits, then 
bled freely by some physician ; the consequence was, 
that the patient very soon sank into a state of collapse ; 
whereas, had they not been bled, I believe that many 
might have been relieved by administering alkalies." 
It is but justice, however, to remark, trn* Dr. Tappen 
believed in blood-letting in the congestive stage of con- 
secutive fever following collapse. But there are other 
means now-a-days of keeping down fever — putting out 
the fire, as we may say — than by drawing out the blood 
a man has in him. 

It is a sad thing to think of, that should the cholera 
again prevail among us, all of the horrible remedies, so 
called, described in the foregoing extracts, are to be 
tried over and over again; and besides, as many new 
inventions as may, by any possibility, be found out. 
If practitioners generally should resort to calomel, 
opium, bleeding, burning, and the like means as before, 
well might it be said, in the language of an old book, 
" If any man sin against the Most High God, let him 
fall into the hands of the physicians." 

If we are to judge of the so-called science of medi- 
cine from its history in cholera, it may be said truly : 

"Physic — a freak of times aud modes, 
Which yearly old mistakes explodes 
For new ones still absurder — 
All slay — their victims disappear, 
And only leave this doctrine clear 
That killing is no murder." 



IGMEOPATHY. 67 



HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT. 



We are told on authority, the validity of which we 
have no right to question, that in the European cities 
the homeopathic treatment has been found far superior 
to the allopathic in cholera. This comparatively new 
mode, I hold, is mainly a let alow treatment, I know 
ihere are those of the new school who practice differ- 
ently — those who would be more eclectic, as they say — 
who would, in short, " become all things to all men" — 
give large doses where large ones are best paid for, and 
small where small ones command the best price. There 
are mongrel homeopaths as well as the true — so say 
the advocates of this mode. But the genuine homeop- 
athic treatment — I cannot believe that this has any ma- 
terial effect either way. But, says one, " How do you 
account for the great difference in the results between 
homeopathic treatment and allopathic in cholera ?" I 
answer, I have great faith in the curative power of na- 
ture — the vis medicatrix naturae, as scholars call it. I 
have great confidence in the efforts of nature to ward 
off disease, if she be left untrammeled to do her own 
work. Besides, the homeopathic ways of nursing and 
diet are admirable — incomparably better than those of 
the old school. The imagination, too — that ever-pow- 
erful agency — is also to be taken into account in this 
matter of small doses. Considering all these things, 
then, I am not at all surprised that the homeopathic 
treatment should far outdo the heterogeneous, contra- 
dictory, and often destructive modes of the old. In 
cholera, the first symptom of which is derangement oi 
the stomach and bowels, let the patient at once abstain 
from all food, take pure, soft, cold water to drink, allow 



68 NATURE CURES, 

the cool fresh air to circulate all about the body, at the 
same time avoiding all extremes and sudden changes ; 
in short, following out precisely that course of nursing 
and general regimen which nature and an enlightened 
experience dictate, and I am certain that a much greater 
number w r ouid be cured than in the treatment by bleed- 
ing, calome.l, opium, and the like horrible means. Na- 
ture, the mother of us all, is not that feeble, decrepit, 
worn-out old woman that people generally suppose her 
to be. In all cases it is nature that does the work of 
cure — art can only assist. 

If time permitted, I might go on speaking at length 
concerning the philosophy of the different modes that 
have been adopted in cholera. The evil effects of blood 
letting, calomel, and opium, for example, might be ex- 
tended into three separate lectures. These are terrible 
"engines" of the old school. I will not say they never 
do good. I know they often do great harm ; harm even 
in the most experienced hands. / would not be bled, 
calomelized, or stupefied with opium. No, not so long 
as pure cold water could be obtained ; a greater seda- 
tive — a greater anti-spasmodic — a greater anodyne, than 
each or all of them combined. Subdue my inflamma- 
tion, relieve my spasms and pains, but do not poison my 
system, or take aw T ay my blood. Cold water, suitably 
applied, is the greatest and best of all agents for fulfill- 
ing these indications ; and it leaves with you all your 
strength — and more, it increases it ; and that, is better 
than can be said of bleeding, calomel, and opium, which 
comprise the great "sheet anchor 9 of drug-treatment. 

If the drug-treatment is found to be ineffectual for 
good in cholera and if the d:ug advocates are so per- 



SAVINGS OF MAGENIHE. 69 

fectly at odds and ends, as I have shown by their own 
words, what are we to think of the treatment general- 
ly ? If the " two-edged swords" of medicine are worth 
nothing in the great emergencies, can we not dispense 
with them well enough in the less ? Does medicine de- 
serve the name of a science, or even of an art ? for 
art is supposed to have rules which are permanent and 
fixed. 

I conclude this lecture by quoting certain sayings of 
Magendie, the celebrated French physiologist, on the 
existing state of the medical art. 

" It is not a little remarkable, that at a period when 
the positive is sought in every quarter, the study of a 
science so important to humanity as medicine should 
be almost the only one characterized by uncertainty and 
chance." 

" The end of all our efforts should be to study the 
causes of disease, and not their effects, as has long been 
done." 

u The physician mixes, combines, and jumbles togeth- 
er vegetable, mineral, and animal substances, and ad- 
ministers them, right or wrong, without considering for 
a moment the cause of the disease, and without a single 
clear idea as to his conduct." 

"I hesitate not to declare, no matter how sorely I 
shall wound our vanity, that so great is our ignorance 
of the real nature of the physiological disorders called 
diseases, that it would perhaps be better to do nothing, 
and resign the complaint we are called to treat to the 
resources of nature, than to act as we are frequently 
compelled to do, without knowing the why or where- 
fore of our conduct, and at the obvious risk of hasten- 
ing the end of the patient." 



70 THE WATER-CURB. 



LECTURE III. 

The System of W ate /-cure ; a Picture showing what it is.- Water one of the Leading 
Constituents of all Living Bodies. — The Human Body composed mostly of Water. 
— Life may be Sustained for weeks by Water alone. — Facts in proof thereof.— Wa- 
ter assuages Hunger. — Remedial uses of Water. — Animals take to Water when 
poisoned. Boerhaave's theory of Fever. — Stimulating practice in Fevers and Inflam- 
matory Diseases wrong. — The cooling Regimer the most natural and the best. — Wa- 
ter the greatest of all Tonics. — Facts from Howard. — Dr. Baynard. — Dr. Hancock.— 
Dr. Adam Clarke. — Sir John Floyer and Dr. Baynard. — A Fever case. — Cold Wa- 
ter in Scalds and Burns. — Medical authorities on the use of Water in Cholera. — Neg- 
lect of Bathing in Medical Practice generally. — Water treatment in Cholera. — Di- 
arrhea preceding Cholera. — How to be Treated. — The great Thirst in Cholera.— 
Warm Water-drinking. — Cold Water with Calomel. — Cold Water promotes the 
Circulation. — Hot Water in Cholera. — Vomiting and Discharges from the Bow- 
els. — Warm Water-Injections. — Vomiting by Water. — Injection of Warm Water 
into the Veins. — Hot Applications externally, bad in Cholera. — Spasms, how re- 
lieved. — Cold Perspiration in Cholera. — Stage of Collapse. — Priessnitz's Treatment 
of Cholera. — The Persian Treatment. — Difference between Water and Drug-Treat- 
ment. — Conclusion. 

Let us suppose that this great city of New York 
were spread over ten times its present space — or, for 
instance, over the whole of Manhattan Island — and that 
every house has a definite amount of area about it for 
gardens, walks, etc., so that good air circulates every 
where. There is no "Five Points" here ; no slaughter- 
houses with their unclean and pestilential emanations ; 
no drinking saloons of either high or low degree ; no 
dens of infamy, the darkest curses of Christendom, 
whether of ancient or modern date. The people are 
44 temperate in all things ;" so temperate, indeed, that 
they are water-drinkers, regarding tea and coffee, the 
common beverages of mankind, as pernicious; in no re- 
spect so good as that " Dest of all drinks." Tobacco is 
held to be a positive poison, instead of a " delectable 
Weed." Temperance and industry, virtue and honesty, 



WATER AND LIFB. 71 

are the laws. Wealth does not ride rough-shod over 
poverty, but all perform some kind of honest toil. The 
poor are not overtasked ; the rich labor to insure health. 
The people do not turn day into night, or night into day 
— for such a practice can never be consistent with 
health. Cleanliness is considered next to godliness — not 
less in a physical than moral sense. Now I have drawn 
this picture to show you something of what would be 
the condition of a people living according to the rules 
of the water-cure, so called, and to show you that the 
system is not a "one remedy," as many suppose. The 
Germans have a name for every thing. In the new me- 
thod, water — pure, clean water — is the great medicinal 
agent; but yet the system includes all the particulars 
of air, exercise, clothing, ventilation, cleanliness, bathing 
in all its forms, food, drink — in short, all the natural 
means of preserving, fortifying, and invigorating the 
general health. 

In the last lecture, I spoke mostly concerning the 
drug-treatment of cholera, showing you from the best 
authorities — by their own words — the inefficacy of that 
treatment. To-night I am to speak of the water-treat- 
ment as applicable in that disease. 

WATER AND LIFE. 

Water is one of the leading constituents of all living 
bodies ; no living thing can exist for more than a short 
period without it. If water in large proportions wer^ 
not constantly present in the human body, the food 
would not become digested in the stomach ; no chyme 
could be elaborated to supply the chyle, or chyle to form 
the blood. Respiration, circulation, secretion, nutrition 



72 JVING ON WATEK. 

perspiration, elimination — neither <af these could go on 
in the living body without the presence of a large pro- 
portion of water. 

The human body, as a whole, is composed in weight 
of about ninety parts in the one hundred of water. A 
body weighing one hundred and twenty pounds, being 
dried at a high heat, loses a.l of its weight but twelve 
pounds. Even its dryer portions, as bone, cartilage, 
ligament, muscle, contain a large proportion of this fluid. 
The blood, and the brain, that most important of all the 
organs of the human body, are made up almost wholly of 
this simple element. 

LIVING ON WATER. 

The living oody may be compared to a perpetual fur- 
nace, which has a tendency constantly, by evaporation, 
to become dry. Its natural temperature internally, 98° 
Fahrenheit, is much above that of the surrounding ob- 
jects of nature, and hence this result. If all food and 
water are for a length of time withheld from the animal, 
he becomes parched and feverish ; in a few days, at 
most, delirium supervenes, and if the experiment be con- 
tinued any considerable time, death is the inevitable re- 
sult. A human being dies in about three weeks without 
food or water ; but if the indication of thirst is an- 
swered by a free supply of pure soft water, the individ- 
ual lives more than twice that length of time. 

In the " Transactions of the Albany Institute," for 
1830, Dr. McNaughton relates the case of one Reuben 
Kelsey, a religious maniac, twenty-seven years of nge, 
who lived on water alone for fifty-three days. The 
first six weeks he was ab e to walk out every day, and 



LIVING ON WATER. 73 

sometimes spent a great part of the day in the woods. 
His walk was said to be steady and firm, and his friends 
even remarked that his step had an unusual elasticity, 
He shaved himself until about a week before his death, 
and was able to sit up in bed to the last day. There 
is also a well-authenticated case of a " craci-brained" 
man at Leyden, who pretended that he could fast as 
long as Christ did ; and it was found that he held out 
the time of forty days without eating any food, only he 
drank water and smoked tobacco, which last practice, 
of course, only injured him, except in the way of amus- 
ing the mind. # And in the Boston Medical and Surgi- 
cal Journal, Dec. 13, 1848, Dr. W. V. M. Edmonson, of 
East New Market, Md., gives an account of a gentle- 
man of that vicinity, aged eighty-five years, who had 
lived, eschewing all nourishment except air and water, 
for forty-three days and five hours. His bowels were 
moved the first twenty days once ; the next fifteen days, 
twice ; the remaining eight days, three times. He had 
been indisposed for some ten days prior to the period 
of fasting. He was a man of industrious habits, frugal, 
and temperate. 

In the old country, where food is often scarce among 
the poor, persons suffering with the cravings of hunger 
have learned that water is an excellent means with 
which to combat the horrors of famishing. The old 
writer on water, John Smith, of England, tells us that he 
once had a sad complaint from a poor old woman of the 
greatness of her want, affirming that oftentimes she 
had not eaten any food for two or three days ; upon 
which he asked her if she did not then suffer much un- 

* See Curiosities of Common Water. Br John Smith, C. M. London: 
1723. 



74 WATE* A3 A REMEDY. 

easiness in her stomach ; she answered she had, but at 
last found a way to assuage her hunger by drinking wa* 
ter, which did satisfy her appetite. 

Cruel and unwarrantable experiments have been 
made upon animals, to prove what was already suffi- 
ciently apparent — the great influence of water hrsustain- 
"ng life. Thus, barn-yard fowls have been kept without 
either food or water, and are found never to pass the 
ninth day ; but if water be furnished them freely, they 
live to the twentieth day. These are interesting exper- 
iments ; but none except worse than barbarians can re- 
peat them. These facts I have given, to show you the 
dependence of life upon water. Many more might be 
given on the same point, but these will suffice. 

REMEDIAL USES OF WATER. 

Let us look, secondly, at some of the remedial uses of 
water. 

Whenever a general feverishness, from whatever 
cause, is brought on in animals, they not only instinct- 
ively drink water, but immerse themselves in it, if it is 
possible for them to do so. It is said that in some coun- 
tries wild pigs become violently convulsed by eating 
henbane, and that by going into water, and by drinking 
it, they recover. And when animals become feverish 
from mutilations or mechanical injury, they seek lying 
upon the damp ground in the cool air, and even in mud 
and wet, and go not unfrequently into the water. Long 
ago it was ascertained in England, that when Canary 
birds had convulsions, to which they were subject, im 
mer&ion in cold water generally effected a cure. And 
a lady informed Sir John F oyer, that when her lap-dog 



THEORY OF FEVER. 75 

had convulsions, "'twas cured of them by being thrown 
into a tub of water." 

Rats, all housekeepers know, go at once to water, 
when they have swallowed arsenic that had been set 
for them ; and hence, too, it is well known that water 
must be kept out of their reach ; otherwise they are 
very apt to recover from the acute gastritis caused by 
the poison. Domestic animals, as cats and dogs, when 
poisoned by arsenic that had been set for rats, take at 
once to lapping down great quantities of water, and are 
thus sometimes apparently saved. I knew a fine old 
pointer-dog in the city of New York, that, after he had 
been nearly beaten to death by the barbarian dog-killers, 
went for days without food, but lapped often large quan- 
tities of water, and was thus saved. 

jboerhaave's theory of fever. 

Boerhaave, the most learned physician of his time, 
held as a theory that fever was caused by a lentor 
(something cold) in the blood. This theory — for it 
was only a theory — caused, for about two centuries, one 
of the most erroneous modes of practice that ever crept 
among the already multiform and barbarous jargons 
of the medical art. Alas ! what erroneous theories and 
practices which the human mind could by any possibili- 
ty invent, have not been put forth to torture human na- 
ture with? Every one of you that has arrived at adult 
age, can well remember how, a few years since, no 
fever patients — none with inflammatory disease of what- 
ever kind — could touch a drop of cold water, at the 
peril of life. "It will be the very death of you," ex- 
claimed the practitioner. The anathemas against no 
4 



76 WATER AS * TONIC. 

poison could be more imperative than this against pure 
cold water in fever. Now and then, however, there 
were those who, spite of physicians, nurses, and attend- 
ants, broke over all bounds in their frenzy, and betook 
themselves to this best of all remedies. And what was 
the result? Were these patients killed by the dreaded 
element? All of you know the proper answer to the 
question. And now, thanks to Priessnitz, the temper- 
ance reformation, and the light of advancing science, 
this horrible practice of which I have been speaking is 
consigned forever, I trust, to be remembered only among 
the things that were. 

WATER THE GREATEST OF ALL TONICS. 

Water is nature's great invigorator, the most genia. 
and yet most powerful of all tonics. There is nothing 
in all the world beside, to compare with it in giving life 
and energy f o the frame. It has been said poetically of 
that vast expanse of water, the ocean, " It is the breath of 
God condensed on what were otherwise a cold and barren 
mass of rock — a breath which has communicated fertility. 
and beauty, and life." When struck down with severe 
disease, the strength all exhausted, and the individual un- 
able to move, there is not in all nature beside, any sub- 
stance, or any combina + ion of substances, that has a tenth 
part the vivifying and nfe-giving power of water. 

"I might mention," says Howard, the philanthropist, 
"as an evidence of the advantages of baths in prisons, 
that I have known instances of persons supposed to be 
dead of jail fever (typhus gravior, or malignant typhus), 
and brought out for burial, who, on being washed with 
cold water, have shown signs of life, and soon after re* 



ANCIENT USES ZF WATER. 77 

covered." And when at the ccunty jail of Hertfordshire, 
Howard was told of a prisoner who, on being pumped 
upon in the yard when in a state of apparent death 
from jail feve r , recovered ; and he afterward declared 
he had known oth^r instances of a similar kind. When 
he was in Turkey, a young man was shown him in one 
of the prisons, who had been bastinadoed so severely, 
that his body was swollen from head to foot in a most 
shocking manner. He desired the people to bathe him 
in cold water ; and this, with some other simple means, 
such as a cooling diet, effected his recovery, contrary 
to the expectations of his keepers. 

"In the year 1665," says Dr. Edward Baynard, "I 
very well remember that it was the talk of the town, 
that a brewer's servant at Horseleydown, in South wark, 
was seized with the plague, and in his delirium ran into 
a horse-pond, first drank his fill, and then fell fast asleep 
with his head upon the pond's brink, where he was 
found in the morning. How long he had been in the 
pond nobody knew, for it was in the night he went into 
the water, and had no nurse then with him ; but he re- 
covered to a miracle." 

Dr. Hancock, also an old writer on water, gives an 
account of a woman "who in the great plague of Lon- 
don, obtained through her husband a pitcher of water 
from Lamb's conduit, and drank plentifully of it, not 
avoiding the cold, and so did not sweat, but was how- 
ever cured." 

Every one who has read the autobiography of Dr. 
Adam Clarke, will recollect how, when a lad, being con- 
fined in a hot room and feather bed, suffering at the 
same tine an attack of inflammatory disease, he raD 



ANCIENT USES OF WATER. 

nd betook himself to the snow, and was thus great- 
ly benefited. 

There is an old English work on water by Sir John 
Floyer and Dr. Edward Baynard, written about one 
hundred and fifty years ago, in which many cases of 
remarkable cure by water are given. One or two from 
Dr. Baynard, a "regular" practitioner, very quaint and 
sarcastic withal, I will give : 

" A Turk (a servant to a gentleman), falling sick of a 
fever, some one of the tribe of treacle-conners being 
called in, whether apothecary or physician, I can't tell, 
out (according to custom), what between blister and 
bolus, they soon made him mad. A countryman of his, 
that came to visit him, seeing him in the broiling con- 
dition, said nothing, but in the night-time, by some con- 
federate help, got him down to the Thames-side, and 
soundly ducked him. The fellow came home sensible, 
and went to bed ; and the next day he was perfectly 
well This story was attested to by two or three gen- 
tlemen of undoubted integrity and worth ; and I doubt 
it not, but believe it from the greater probability ; for 
I'll hold ten to one on the Thames-side against treacle, 
snake-root, and all that hot regimen which inflames and 
exalts the blood, breaks its globules, and destroys the 
man. And then, forsooth, the doctor sneaks away like a 
dog that has lost his tail, and cries, it was a pestilential, 
malignant fever, that nobody could cure ; and to show 
his care of the remainder, bids them open the windows, 
air the bed-clothes, and perfume the rooms for fear of 
infection ; and if he be of the right whining, canting, 
prick-eared stamp, concludes, as they do at Tyburn, with 
a mournful ditty, a psalm, or a preservative prayer for 
the rest of the fami/y So exit Prig, with his starched, 



SCALDS AND BURNS. 79 

forinai chops, ebony cane, fringed gloves, etc." Thus 
mucn /or Dr. Baynard and his criticisms on doctors. 



COLD WATER IN SCALDS AND BURNS. 

Witness the effects of cold water in burns, and you 
have an evidence of its superior power over that of 
every other remedy to cure an inflammation. Every 
schooi-boy that burns his fingers upon the stove, knows 
better than the doctors how to treat it. If it be in the 
winter time, he fills his pockets with snow-balls to cure 
his burn, even at the expense of being flogged, if his 
more ignorant teacher should find him out. Great wri- 
ters on medicine and surgery tell you, that cold water, 
although so agreeable to a burn at first, makes the pain 
worse afterward. But the school-boy improves upon 
the method of the learned doctors, by keeping on with 

THE APPLICATION UNTIL THE FIRE IS ALL DRAWN OUT. 

Draw out the fire and the pain does not return at all ; 
and more than this : no blister can raise under cold wa- 
ter it Jong enough applied. If the surface has been de- 
stroyed, you have an ulcer to heal, but no blister ; and 
water also rightly applied is the best of all poultices for 
ulcers, as well as scalds and burns. 

Let us look now briefly to the principal medical au- 
thorities as touching the effects of water in the treat- 
ment of cholera, merely premising here concerning the 
philosophy of the action of water in this disease, that 
there is no malady in which thirst and heat, internally, 
are so great as in cholera, and that consequently there 
is no known disease in which so great quantities will be 
taKen, or in which water is so grateful to the patient as 



80 WATER IN CHOJLERA. 

in this. Even when the breath and the -vhole surface 
are cold, apparently, as death, the cool fresh air, ana 
coolness generally, externally as well as internally, are 
constantly desired by the patient ; and as a consequence 
of this natural instinct for cold, an instinct which should 
be gratified in all legitimate ways, there is in cholera 
a great dislike, repugnance even, to warm and hot ap- 
plications of every kind. These I have already shown 
by good authority, do no good ; only harm the pa- 
tient. 

Dr. Dunglison, of Philadelphia, in Principles and Prac- 
tice of Medicine, says : " The intense thirst of cholera 
must be satisfied with a liberal allowance of cold water ; 
nor need the quantity be limited. There can be no 
doubt that ice and ice drinks are most grateful. Ice 
frequently allays the irritability of the stomach, whicn 
is a symptom demanding attention from the distress it 
causes." 

Dr. Wood, of the same city, in Principles and Prac- 
tice of Medicine, recommends cold drinks to be given* 
little and often. "A little very cold water every now 
and then, or small pieces of ice, will be found very 
grateful to the patient. Whatever liquids are adminis- 
tered should be cold, as heat increases the thirst ana 
already intolerable burning of the stomach/' 

Dr. Scouttetten, of Strasbourg, speaks of M. Gra- 
vier having learned from an Indian doctor, named Rus- 
sendren, a very sensible man, that individuals who drank 
fresh water recovered from the cholera ; that of a cer- 
tain number that were treated, twenty drank cold wa- 
ter from the commencement, and were cured in from 
twenty- ^our to thirty-six hours. Again, M. Gravier. 
when admitting that a great mass of liquid would tend 



MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. Si 

to cause vomiting, a fact which every 01 e may prove 
for himself, remarks judiciously, "that if cold water u 
taken in small quantities, and at proper intervals, the 
stomach can bear it well. Experience proves this every 
day and there are but few practitioners who do not use 
cold and ice water when they wish to combat stubborn 
vomitings." 

The French Academy recommended, in 1831, ice and 
cold drinks to arrest the vomitings in cholera. 

Four years ago the present winter, being on a pro- 
fessional visit to Philadelphia, I happened in at a lecture 
of Professor Chapman, of the University of Pennsylva- 
nia. The professor spoke in part that day on the cholera ; 
and in closing his remarks, he used language in sub- 
stance like the following: "Gentlemen, after all that we 
can tell you about the cholera, should you ever be called 
to treat a case of that fearful disease, you would know 
as well how to proceed as if you had seen it as much as 
any of us, so conflicting were the theories and modes 
of practice adopted by the profession. We know noth- 
ing about it. But, gentlemen, it appears to me that the 
best treatment which I had any knowledge of, was to 
let the patient have as much ice and iced water as he 
desired ; and it is astonishing what quantities were 
taken." Here also we have a very candid admission, 
from one of the ablest professors, and in the most cele- 
brated medical school of the "Medical Athens" of the 
United States. 

Dr. Billing, of London, in Principles of Medicine, 
speaking of the remedies for cho era, remarks : " Any 
person who will treat the disease on principle, may de- 
feat it by a variety of weapons, only using them with 
energy ;" and among the articles recommended, he makes 



82 MEDICAL AUTHORITIES. 

the remark, " even cold water ;" and then says in a 
note : " The constant desire for cold water in cholera, 
is an example of natural instinct, which is thwarted by 
man in his wisdom ; while every thing hot, both as tc 
caloric and stimulants, is often poured into the patients;'' 

Dr. Elliotson, of London, in Practice of Medicine, 
says : " Cholera patients feel intense heat within, and 
intense thirst ; and they find great comfort from cold 
drinks. I understand that in Vienna the custom was to 
allow ice, which the patients took with great avidity, 
and derived great comfort from it." 

Dr. Tappen, of New York, in Hospital Reports on 
cholera, says : " When the disease is approaching to 
collapse, in addition to the above treatment (by calomel, 
etc.), I employ the means for restoring heat more ac- 
tively, and give ice freely, directing the patient to chew 
and swallow it as fast as possible ; it is found to cause 
reaction when thus given more speedily than any other 
remedy I have seen employed ; and it has the additional 
advantage of being very grateful to the patient, and is 
also one of the most effectual means of allaying thirst, 
and relieving sickness at the stomach and vomiting." 

Dr. Mackintosh, of Edinburgh, who also had much 
experience in the treatment of cholera at Drummond 
street Hospital, in Principles and Practice of Medicine, 
says : " Cholera patients suffer from intense thirst, and 
their anguish always appeared greatly increased if they 
were restricted as to the quantity of liquid. In the 
Drummond street Hospital every method was tried, 
viz., by restricting the quantity of liquid ; by allowing 
a moderate quantity, or affording an unrestricted sup- 
ply ; and we came to the conclusion, that the last was 
the best method." And Dr. Morton, of Philadelphia, 



WATER IN CHOLERA. 83 

'n his notes on Dr. Mackintosh's Practice of Medicine., 
emarks : * Broussais found nothing so good as ice in 
Jie treatment of cholera ;" he further says, M that in the 
sold stage he began with hot drinks, but soon abandon- 
ed them for ice itself. It is now adopted every where, 
the patient being directed to keep small pieces of it 
almost constantly in his mouth during* all the stages oi 
the disease. It reduces the irritability of the stomach, 
quenches thirst, and alleviates the general distress of 
the sick." 

Drs. Bell and Condie, in their work on cholera, when 
speaking concerning the question whether it is proper 
or safe to apply cold to the skin when it is already cold, 
sodden, and wet with sweat, as in the most formidable 
and advanced stage of cholera, remark, "that this prac- 
tice has been adopted, viz. : frictions with ice over the 
surface of the body, or affusion for a minute of cold 
water, of a temperature of from fifty-eight to sixty de- 
grees Fahrenheit. The former is stated in the report 
of the French Academy of Medicine, to have been serv- 
iceable in relieving cramps, and we have just learned 
that, in an apparently hopeless case of collapse, or blue 
stage, in this city (Philadelphia), it was had recourse to 
advantageously." " The cold affusion," these authors also 
remark, "is a practice of Recamier in the blue stage. 
We are told that after the patient has been dried and 
put in a warm bed, the skin is soon covered with sweat ;" 
and as collateral testimony, " that Samoilowitz employ- 
ed this remedy with success in some cases of plague at 
Moscow, in which the patients seemed to be beyond the 
reach of art." 

Dr. Parkes, of London, says: "Cold to the surface 
was a measure much more grateful to the patients thfin 
4* 



84 WATER IN CHOLERA. 

warmth. This might have been anticipated, also, from 
the way in which the bed-clothes are thrown off, so as 
to expose the surface freely to the fresh air. The cold 
affusion, even in the last stage, two or three hours be- 
fore death, sometimes caused the pulse to become again 
perceptible." A good omen, certainly, because the stim- 
ulation caused by water is not foiiowed by depression, 
as is the case with all drug stimulants. And this author 
also remarks, that " eold drinks as well as cold affusions 
are grateful, and should be freely allowed, if they do 
not produce vomiting." 

It is to be here remarked, that the use of cold water 
externally has been but little resorted to in cholera. 
The coldness of the surface and the cold breath of chol- 
era patients, have been a stumbling block to physicians. 
Medical men generally know very little concerning the 
action of water on the living system — scarcely more 
than the old women, who all know that cold water is 
cold, and warm water warm. Physicians do not under- 
stand that cold water may be used to fulfill a variety of 
indications ; that it may be made, at pleasure, now an 
emetic, now a cathartic, now a sedative, now a tonic, 
now a stimulant, now an anodyne, and now an anti- 
spasmodic. Water is supposed to be only one of two 
things, accordingly as it is used ; a means of applying 
heat, or a means of applying cold. 

It is strange to witness, in hospitals, the great neglect 
of bathing and cleanliness. Look at cholera patients, 
for example ; poor creatures, many of them, who have 
never, for the first time in their lives, been clean. Greasy 
filthiness is glued in, so to say, upon every part of the 
great surface. First of all, you see the patient bled, or 
dosed with calorrd, opium, brandy, and what not, ac* 



HARRH^A PRECEDING CHOLERA. 85 

cording to the fancy of the practitioner — but no baths. 
One of the greatest and most accessible organs of the 
whole system, one of the best upon which to a[ ply re- 
medial means, is left wholly neglected. Strange indeed 
is it, that among men of learning such things exist. But 
there is a hope in the matter ; for ere long things must 
become changed. Water, the greatest and best of all 
curative agents, is destined to take its proper place in 
the healing art. 

I come now to speak more directly concerning the 
water-treatment of cholera. You will recollect, that 
the disease is preceded by more or less disturbance of 
the digestive organs, and that there is usually prelimi- 
nary diarrhea. Then come on also the great thirst, the 
vomiting and purging of the " rice-water fluid," the 
most terrible spasms, the sinking of the circulation, the 
cold sweat, and the collapse. First, then, of the 

DIARRHEA PRECEDING CHOLERA. 

The diarrhea which so generally precedes the real 
attack of cholera, should be treated like any other diar- 
rhea, on general principles. It would be better for the 
individual to practice entire fasting from all food — the 
hunger-cure, as the Germans call it — until the diarrhea 
ceases. The human body, as I have said, is composed 
of about nine-tenths water, in its best health ; therefore 
it is that pure water alone will sustain it so wonderfully 
for days and even weeks. Barn-yard fowls, as before 
remarked, when kept without food, will not survive the 
ninth day if they have no water ; but with water they 
will live more than twice as long — to the twentieth day. 
(f you wish t? cure a diarrhea safely, effectually, and 



SO THIRST IN CHOLERA. 

without harm to the constitution, practice fasting, and 
live on pure soft water until it ceases. Then be^in 
taking food with extreme caution ; at the regular meal- 
times only, and an exceedingly small quantity at first. 
Some will tell you that fasting produces disease, hut 
physiology and pathology prove that neither fasting 
nor starvation causes any such result. The individual 
who is starved, having at the same time water to drink, 
dies of mere inanition, and not of organic disease. 

According to the Graefenberg plan, the cold hip-bath, 
cold water-drinking, injections, pure, fresh air, and the 
famous wet girdle of Priessnitz, are the means to be 
used ; and these may be employed in connection with 
the fasting recommended. 

THE GREAT THIRST IN CHOLERA 

Is one of the most troublesome symptoms, and, ac- 
cording to all experience, it is one of the most grateful 
things imaginable for the patient to be allowed all the 
cold water he desires. There is no disease in which 
thirst is so great — none in which so much cold water is 
drank. Some thought that cold water did harm in cer- 
tain cases. So it might, if the water were hard and 
bad, or if the patient had been kept long from it, or, 
especially, if he had been over-drugged. In all cases 
of inward feverishness and thirst, it is of the greatest 
importance that the water be pure and soft. If people 
would take half the puns respecting water that they 
do in obtaining tea and coffee, they might have at least 
an abundance of filtered rain water, which is always a 
luxury, and remarkably favorable to health. 

}n 1831 and 1832, the practitioners of Europe and 



WARM WATER-DRINKING. 81 

this countiy did not agree upon this matter, at least not 
for a time at first. But at length the large majority 
came to believe in the free use of water and ice inter- 
nally, to gratify the longings for drink. But there is a 
reason why some men might make a mistake in regard 
to their conclusion, as to whether the ad libitum use of 
water internally were safe in cholera ; it is this : in cer- 
tain states and conditions of the stomach and alimentary 
canal, water appears to increase vomiting. Thus I can 
conceive that a cholera patient would often be made to 
vomit worse on taking water, especially if it had been 
withheld from him. But we are not to infer from this 
that the water is necessarily bad. In poisoning, for 
instance, a patient may drink and vomit gallons of wa- 
ter, and yet when the offending cause is removed, the 
vomiting ceases. Causing a sedative effect upon the 
stomach — and water is one of the most effectual of all 
means possible by which to bring about this indication 
— is the best possible means of finally arresting vomit- 
ing from whatever cause. Give the patient, from the 
first, all the cold water he desires, and the stomach will 
take care of its own vomiting. Small pieces of ice held 
constantly in the mouth and often swallowed, is believed 
by many the best mode of managing this symptom. 
The most judicious rule, I think, would be to consult the 
patient's inclination. I should not fear to let him drink 
all he desired ; if the vomiting were increased at first, 
that would be no harm. 

WARM WATER-DRINKING. 

Even warm water, that is, water as warm as the 
blood, v ; z., 98° Fahrenheit, would be incomparably 



88 EFFECTS OF WATER. 

better than no drink at all. It would seive to dilute the 
acrid matters within the stomach and bowels, and the 
morbid fluids pouring out upon the mucous membrane 
generally, and thus much good even from warm water 
would be caused. 



WATER-DRINKING WITH CALOMEL, ETC. 

When calomel and other powerful medicines are ad- 
ministered, water having for a time been denied the pa- 
tient, I think a too free and sudden use of cold water in- 
ternally, might in some cases do harm. There is no 
need of going to excess in this matter ; the thirst may 
be soon enough quelled without doing violence to the 
system. The common doctrine of physicians now is, 
that water may be taken with the utmost freedom while 
under the effect of mercurial medicine. 

COLD WATER-DRINKING PROMOTES THE CIRCULATION. 

Some writers on water, as Dr. Bell, of Philadelphia 
(see Bell on Baths and Mineral Waters), hold that cold 
water is necessarily always a sedative to the system ; that 
is, it acts to lower or depress the heart's action. But 
this is not always so; cold water and ice promote cir- 
culation (action of the heart and arteries) under some 
circumstances, as in the sinking stage of cholera. Does 
not every one know that cold water, both internally and 
externally, is one of the best revivers — stimulants, we 
may say — in fainting and sinking from whatever cause. 
You recollect Howard's cases of persons being revived 
by cold water, when they were supposed to be dead, and 
probably would never ha» r e recovered if the cold water 



VARM WATER-DRINKING. 89 

had not been applied. Similar results were found to 
take place in some instances of cholera. Broussais tells 
us, that in the Military Hospital of Val-de-Grace, in Pa- 
ris, there were instances of the revovery of patients in 
asphyxia, by cold water. "We have had instances," 
he says, " of the recovery of patients who had become 
biack or dark colored, and this has been owing to the 
use of ice and cold drinks." 

Formerly there were many and various opinions as 
to whether diluents were to be allowed at all during 
an attack of cholera. It is conceded on all hands, that 
the great desire of the patient is for cold drink. I can 
believe that warm drinks, and even hot water, pure and 
soft, as a diluent, would be much better than none. In 
cholera, the fluids of the system are pouring off tremen- 
dously from the stomach and bowels. Now the living 
body, being composed of so large a proportion of water, 
about nine tenths, must have a frequent supply from 
some source ; and especially when the fluids are passing 
off with so great rapidity as in cholera. Therefore it 
would doubtless be better to give even hot drinks — not, 
however, so hot as to do great violence to the system — 
than to withhold all fluid, or very nearly all, as was the 
practice of some. Dr. Sturm, a surgeon of the Polish 
army, is quoted by Drs. Bell and Condie, as saying : 
"The treatment we now employ (at Kamienka), is noth- 
ing else than giving the patient as much warm, nearly 
hot water, as he is able to drink, in the quantity of a 
glassfull every fifteen or thirty minutes. By the time 
he has taken fourteen glasses the cure is complete, with 
the exception of a slight diarrhea, which it is not pro- 
per suddenly to suspend. The effects of this plan of 
treatment are so quick ar.d effectual, that in two hours, 



90 TREATMENT IN COLLAPSE. 

or often sooner, the patient is well, particularly when it 
is commenced with sufficiently early/ 

The drinking of water and the use of ice internally — ■ 
any thing, in short, that produces a sedative effect upon 
the abdominal organs — will tend to arrest the vomiting 
and discharges from the bowels. Bathing also has the 
same effect, but more particularly the long-continued 
cold hip-bath. This is Priessnitz's great means of ar- 
resting all unnatural discharges from the bowels. Mean 
time, also, cold injections are to be used. These cause 
a constringing effect, and act, also, as a tonic to the gen- 
eral system. All internal applications of cold water act 
by dilution as well as coolness, rendering morbid mat- 
ters less acrid, and, by the water-purging, it also car- 
ries off these humors of disease. The wet girdle Priess- 
ni'tz uses between the periods of the hip-bath. This is, 
at least, three yards of good heavy linen toweling, one 
half its whole length wet, to come next the surface, and 
all well wrapped about the abdomen. It is a great tonic 
to the general system, as well as astringent to the stom- 
ach and bowels, in arresting the discharges. 

" In the stage of collapse," say Drs. Bell and Condie, 
"large injections of warm water have been much used 
in the north of England, and with a very encouraging 
result. Mr. Lizars directs the water to be as hot as 
the hand can bear — in quantity of three or four pints, 
with a tea-spoonfull of laudanum." Of this application 
it may be remarked, that, like many other prescriptions 
of water in medical books, it is faulty in the particular, 
that the temperature of the water is not mentioned. 
Water, when above seventy or eighty degrees Fahren- 
heit, appears warmer to the external sensations than it 
really is. Thus water at the temperature of the blooci. 



PRIESSNITZ's CURE. 91 

viz., ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit, appears to be 
quite hot, so that there is room for doubt as to the 
real degree of temperature, when sensations merely are 
taken as the guide. On the principle that stimulants in- 
ternally are a source of uneasiness to the patient and 
unfavorable in effect, we have reason to believe, if not 
positive proof, that water alone would be the best. 
" The plain hot water," say the authorities quoted (and 
the method was to repeat the application hourly, or as 
often as the symptoms demanded), " was found more 
efficacious in relieving the spasms and collapse than 
laudanum." 

Priessnitz always uses the injections cold ; and these 
are best, for cold has an astringent effect in arresting 
all discharges from the bowels. 

Vomiting by w r ater may be serviceable in cholera. 
Some practitioners have observed, strange as it may ap- 
pear, that emetics serve to arrest vomiting in this disease. 
Vomiting by means of water — that is, vomiting caused 
by drinking quickly a large quantity of blood-warm wa- 
ter — a quart or more — is often very useful in derange- 
ments of the stomach and bowels. Spasms of the stom- 
ach I have known arrested immediately by this simple 
remedy. I am confident that a thorough cleansing of the 
stomach with luke-warm water in this way, would often 
be a most excellent remedy in the early stages of cholera. 
Vomiting thus practiced, acts partly by removing offen- 
sive matters from the stomach, partly by promoting a 
better circulation toward the surface, and partly by in- 
ducing a healthful perspiration upon the skin. This is a 
perfectly safe remedy, and is certain of doing some 
good. In fits of dyspepsia caused by surfeiting, the 
vomiting will be found most excellent. This advice 



92 INJECTIONS IN THE VEINS. 

may apply especially to those who cannot control their 
appetites, but would rather feast and gorge- themselves, 
even at the expense of health. 

All the internal applications, when properly made, do 
much good, by supplying serum for the blood. The 
great and copious discharges from the stomach and 
bowels rob the blood, with most fearful rapidity, of its 
watery part. Water, by drinking and by injections, as 
well as externally applied, goes directly to make up 
this deficiency ; and hence the great benefit from the 
free use of water in this disease. It is to be remarked, 
also, that the greater the thirst, the more rapidly is wa- 
ter absorbed into the circulation by the mucous mem- 
brane of the stomach and bowels. 

The injections of warm water into the veins was be- 
lieved by some to be of great service in cholera. Dr. 
Watson, of London, elsewhere quoted, tells us of a wo- 
man who was for some time a nurse in the Middlesex 
Hospital, and who had been rescued, when at the verge 
of death in cholera, by the injection of warm water into 
her veins. But the practice of injecting the veins is 
always a hazardous one, because of the liability of in- 
troducing air at the same time. Air in the veins is 
death to the patient. The reason why water does so 
much good when introduced into the veins, is apparent 
from the fact, that the blood in cholera loses a great 
proportion^ of its serum or watery part. Supply this, 
and the patient is certain of reviving for the time, al- 
though he might not in the end recover. But if a pa- 
tient can be revived, even for a short time, it might be 
a very desirable thing, as in case of making a will, or in 
giving directions about other worldly matters. 

Experience proves — those tell us who ha -e had the 



SPASMS AND PERSPIRATION. 93 

disease to treat — that heat externally applied is produc- 
tive of no benefit. It does no good to attempt to warm 
the patients. The general effect of heat is to cebilitate; 
and the fact that cholera patients always dread hot air 
and hot baths, is proof enough why these should not be 
used ; the constant desire in the active stages of the 
disease is for coolness, fresh air, and cold water to 
drink. I would not be understood as saying, that heat 
internally applied, by means of water, which produces 
at the same time various other effects than merely those 
of heat, can do no good. But the desire for coolness 
generally, in the active form of the disease, is, beyond 
doubt, the normal indication of nature, such as an ani- 
mal would naturally seek to gratify. 

Spasms in cholera are best relieved by the vigorous 
application of the rubbing wet-sheet. Have a linen sheet 
of good weight (but cotton will answer), wring it only 
slightly out of cold water, and put about the whole body, 
rubbing at the same time energetically, over the sheet 
and not with it. This is a famous application for bring- 
ing the blood to the surface, and of relieving spasms and 
cramps from whatever cause. In three or four minutes 
the sheet becomes warm, upon which it is again re- wet, 
and applied as before. Water by this application be- 
comes a great antispasmodic. 

It was found in the hospitals of Paris, that dry fric- 
tion alone was often effectual in quieting spasms beyond 
any ordinary remedy ; but wet friction is much the best. 

The cold perspiration in cholera may be greatly re- 
lieved, if not wholly prevented, by ablutions. This is a 
symptom of debility, and the tonic effect of water to the 
skin is a sure preventive. In the night sweats of con- 
sumption, the same effects axe caused by baths. 



94 PRIESSNITZ'S SUCCESS. 

You may ask, " How would you treat a patient in 
collapse ; the surface cold and pallid, and the pulse 
gone ?" That is a difficult question. If cold water is 
known sometimes to restore persons, who appeared to 
be dead, of jail and other putrid fevers, as was seen by 
Howard, and if cold water will quickly rouse a drunken 
man from stupor, we ought not to give up too soon in 
cholera. Cold water is incomparably the greatest of all 
tonics ; therefore I would use it perseveringly, and in a 
variety of ways, to the very last. When I have had 
the disease to treat, then I can tell you more about it. I 
will leave for small men to herald forth their " specifics'' 
and " infallible cures," who have a greater desire to see 
their names in print, than to know and tell the honest 
truth. The oldest and wisest men will find their pre- 
conceived theories modified in a greater or less degree 
when they come to meet the disease hand to hand. 

In 1831, there was much cholera about Graefenberg, 
considering the number of inhabitants there. Priess- 
nitz cured, he tells us, upward of twenty cases, being 
all that he had the opportunity of treating. He com- 
menced in the first stages of the disease, and treated the 
patient as follows : they were subjected to a rubbing 
w ; th a wet linen sheet, in which the whole body was 
wrapped, and all the parts of the surface were energeti- 
cally rubbed with it — that is, over the sheet. To coun- 
teract the violent fits of nausea, much water was drank, 
so as to produce vomiting ; after the rubbing, a cold 
water-injection and a cold hip-bath were employed, to 
counteract the diarrhea ; and while undergoing constant 
rubbing of the surface, the patients remained in the water 
till the sickness and diarrhea subsided. After the hip- 
oath and rubbing, a wet bandage or girdle was placed 



FRIESSNITZ's SUCCESS. 95 

around the body, upon which the patients went to bed ; 
after sleeping they were again put into a cold bath. Cold 
drinks and cold food onlv were taken during the conva- 
lescence ; and by these means the disease was overcome. 

This appears like a very simple treatment; but it 
may be made a most energetic one, as every physician 
acquainted with such applications can easily see. The 
dripping sheet, with the brisk rubbing upon its surface, 
is, as I have before said, a powerful means of relieving 
spasms, arising from whatever cause. The dry rubbing, 
which is not a tenth part as good as the wet, was found 
in Paris sufficient to render calm and quiet the poor 
sufferers, when the terrible spasms were upon them. 
The water-drinking and vomiting in nausea cleanses the 
stomach, produces a tonic effect upon its internal sur- 
face, and thus forestalls the vomiting in cholera. It 
helps, moreover, to cleanse the bowels and prevent the 
diarrhea. The deep, cold hip-bath (for it is such that 
Priessnitz uses), has a very powerful effect in constring- 
ing the opening capillaries of the mucous membrane of 
the stomach, and alimentary canal generally, and in ar- 
resting the vomiting and discharges from the bowels. 
Each and all of these applications, if energetically per- 
severed in, tend most powerfully to keep down the in- 
ordinate burning and thirst. 

Priessnitz had not been in the habit of practicing warm 
water vomiting. I conversed much with him respect- 
ing all his modes of using water, during a stay of near- 
ly two months at Graefenberg, last winter. To seek 
vomiting as an effect, seemed never to have been an ob- 
ject with him. Even by drinking cold water, vomiting 
sometimes comes on, but not often. If we wish to cause 
that symptom, as in cramps and distress arising from 



96 PERSIAN TREATMENT. 

offending matters in the stomach or alimentary cana\ ; 
blood-warm water is by far the most speedy and effect- 
ual in its action. In reference to this mode, Priessnitz 
remarked, that he would do no violence to the system. 
I told him I had practiced it in many instances, in cases 
of old and very feable persons, and that the result was 
always apparently good. On reflection, he admitted 
that the remedy must be a good one. I will here re- 
mark, that if there is heat and thirst, the water should 
always be used cold, although the blood-warm will do 
much good even then. 

Here let it be understood, I do not claim a great deal 
for Priessnitz's experience in cholera. He is a most 
candid man, and one that would not, for his right hand, 
mislead the world in so important a matter as treating 
the sick. He never fails to tell us that his cholera cases 
were taken in the very beginning of the disease. At 
the same time, however, he affirms that the water-treat- 
ment is incomparably the best mode that can be adopt- 
ed, in all stages of the disease. 

Dr. Caspar, of Berlin, is said to have treated cholera 
with eminent success by means of water. 

The Persian treatment of cholera, as given by Dr. 
Scouttetten, in some respects resembles that of Priess- 
nitz. It is thus given : 

" The following will give an idea of the mode of treat- 
ment at Baku, which contains 12,000 Persians and 800 
Russians. The treatment commenced at the moment 
of the attack ; from the first symptoms the patients were 
undressed, even in the streets, and then cold affusions 
were applied. The extremities, the trunk, and particu- 
larly the chest and the shoulders, were rubbed and sham- 
pooed, and t( e contracted limbs were extended. 



TER8IAN TREATMENT. 97 

* These manipulations were performed for two or three 
hours by a dozen persons, on the same individual, while 
the affusion of cold water was continued. Having come 
home he went to bed, and a warm tea was given him to 
produce perspiration; if this appeared, the patient was 
regarded as out of danger. A strict regimen was how- 
ever enjoined for nine days; only light soups of rice 
and of tender meats were allowed, and he was recom- 
mended to take moderate exercise in the open air daily. 
Arrangements were made by the authorities so well, 
that vessels of water were placed at the corners of 
streets, and even on the roads ; no one passed the night 
alone ; when a person was attacked with the cholera in 
the street, all the by-standers attended to him ; every 
one ran to him with vessels of water in their hands, and 
when one was tired of rubbing another took his place. 
If a person was taken sick at his house, assistance was 
asked and immediately obtained." 

Singular enough, we are not told what were the results 
of this treatment. We may judge they were good, else 
so much pains would not have been taken. There was 
to say the least, system in the treatment, which is more 
than can be said of the old empirical modes. All who 
are acquainted with the water-cure of Priessnitz will see 
at once that the cold affusions often repeated, in con- 
nection with the friction and shampooing of the surface, 
would have a very powerful effect in bringing the blood 
toward that part, in relieving the spasms, preventing the 
internal heat and distress, arresting the vomiting and 
discharges, supporting the strength ; in short, in warding 
off evet y symptom of the disease. The nine days' strict 
regimen, also, was most excellent, although soups, espe- 
cially of flesh meat, are not the best in such cases. As 



98 CONCLUSION. 

to the warm drink, that is a small matter, even if not ths 
best. One thing is certain, the Persian patients could 
not have longed much for cold water and fresh air while 
being subjected to so vigorous an out-door treatment 
with cold water. 

To close, then, on the treatment and genuine manage- 
ment in cholera: Remember, first, that prevention is 
immeasurably better than cure. Second, in the prelim- 
inary disturbance of the stomach and bowels, fasting 
with water-drinking (the water pure and soft, as filtered 
rain water, which all can have if no other can be ob- 
tained), and properly timed bathing, are the best possi- 
ble means. Fasting until the stomach disturbance and 
diarrhea cease, may weaken you a little at the time, but 
on taking food cautiously, gradually, you soon become 
well and strong — even better and stronger than before. 
In the real attack of cholera, drink cold water to the 
full extent of your desire from the very first. But the 
water, to do its best work, remember, must be pure and 
soft. Use the rubbing wet-sheet, cold, energetically 
and perseveringly, in quelling spasms and promoting 
general circulation, until the desired effect is obtained. 
Practice frequent hip-baths and injections, and apply 
the wet girdle to check diarrhea, and to support the 
strength. Thus you have in cold water the most abun- 
dant of all remedial substances, the greatest and the 
best; the best as a tonic, stimulant, sedative, anodyne 
antispasmodic, accordingly as it is used ; the best in 
nature to aid the system, not only in the most terrible 
emergencies of cJiolera, but the best to fortify and in- 
vigorate the general health. 



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